


somewhere to begin

by lesbinej



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Light Angst, Major Character Injury, Not Canon Compliant, Nothing explicit, Slow Burn, idk what else to tag tbh hdsfksjfhksdfj., rated for periods and certain ~sexy~ scenes, this is basically just. a season 2 fic but if i wrote it, tw for suicide mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-06-30 07:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 98,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15747006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbinej/pseuds/lesbinej
Summary: Molly checked the time. 2:34 AM. It was evident in the dark circles underneath Gert’s eyes, Karolina’s slumped posture, and the way everyone else around her was fast asleep—save Alex, who had been staring out the window. Every time Molly asked why he wasn’t sleeping, he simply replied, “Can’t.” She suspected none of them were really sleeping as of late. Especially not Gert, who tossed and turned at night from nightmares she refused to talk about, no matter how hard Molly pressed.- orthe events following the conclusion of season 1, beginning from less than 24 hours after they run.Follow me at @pebbleys on Twitter for extra info about this plus staying up-to-date with the schedule of this fic!(title from somewhere only we know / keane)





	1. only streetlights

**Author's Note:**

> first chapter posted! In total, I have up to chapter 5 written out and it's at over 50k—well past time for me to be publishing this, I guess. This is my first longform project ever, so let me know how im doing!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from mercury / sleeping at last)

If Molly had to hear _I Was Made For Sunny Days_ one more time, she was going to scream.

Gert had snatched an AUX cord from the last gas station and, because she had an affinity for the retro, hooked up her iPod Nano to it. Sure, Alex had made them all dump their phones, but the thing didn’t even have a screen. No way they could be tracked with it. At least, that was what Gert said.

Gert turned up the knob and Molly felt the guitar drilling into her head. It was almost worse when Gert began singing. As much as she loved her sister’s voice…

 

_I went to the market_

_though it was threatening rain_

_I was late to the station_

_so I missed that train_

 

“Can you change it? You’ve played that same song three times in the past hour.” Molly leaned against Old Lace in the back seat. Alex chimed agreement. Karolina, who was riding shotgun and in charge of the music, pouted a little.

“It’s one of the only songs Gert and I agree on.”

 

_I was made for sunny days_

_I made do with grey, but I didn't stay_

_I was made for sunny days_

_And I was made for you_

 

Gert puffed out a breath and put on her turn signal, clearly intending to take the exit to the rest area. Molly didn’t even hate the song, it was just the fact that Gert only had so many songs on an iPod that she found in her pocket when they all changed into the thrift store clothing. The fact that it was still intact was a miracle, but it meant the same old, indie music was being played over and over. Molly was half tempted to toss the iPod out the window and ride in silence.

“Anyone need to piss?” Gert asked, ignoring (or possibly just not hearing) the brewing argument.

Molly checked the time. 2:34 AM. It was evident in the dark circles underneath Gert’s eyes, Karolina’s slumped posture, and the way everyone else around her was fast asleep—save Alex, who had been staring out the window. Every time Molly asked why he wasn’t sleeping, he simply replied “Can’t.” She suspected none of them were really sleeping as of late. Especially not Gert, who tossed and turned at night from nightmares she refused to talk about, no matter how hard Molly pressed.

“I do.” Karolina said at the same time Molly said “Yes.” Gert sighed.

“Alex, your turn. Want anything from the vending machines?”

“This whole mess to be over? My own bed?” Alex pressed a palm to his eyes.

“Yeah… I have like, three dollars.”

“Can you get me some Reese’s?” Molly asked hopefully. She knew the answer was no, Gert never bought her vending machine candy.

“Sure.”

That’s how Molly knew Gert was truly exhausted.

 

Molly hurried through the bathroom—she knew the hour was late but the risk of being recognized was still there, no matter how small.

_If someone recognized me I could just knock them out. I’m strong._

Isn’t knocking someone out assault? As if she wanted to add on more charges to their names—names that were quickly acquiring more and more crimes. Kidnapping, murder, and petty and grand larceny were just the top of the list, although admittedly they _had_ actually committed the last ones during their time on the run. Clothes, toiletries, food, water—most of it was stolen. As much as everyone had been relieved when Alex turned up a surprise stack of cash, it was still far, far too risky to spend it too quickly and all at once. They’d discovered that after Chase had tried to pay for a shitton of food with two hundred dollar bills, which was _totally_ suspicious as Molly had said from the start, and gotten the cops called on them. Gert had barely made it back from the bathroom by the time they were squealing out of that parking lot. It was easier to sneak into gas stations in disguise and distract the cashier with preloading the gas pump while two or three of them filled their pockets with granola bars and the like.

Molly hadn’t realized how long she’d left her hands underneath the air dryer until Karolina cleared her throat behind her.

“Sorry!” Molly squeaked and hurried out of the way. Karolina smiled, her whole body screaming _EXHAUSTED_.

“Are you okay?” She asked. Funny, Molly was going to ask the same thing.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?” Molly couldn’t tell if the note in her voice was concern or condescension. She bristled at the thought. Karolina had always been the only one to treat her like everyone else, and the idea of her babying Molly when she was _fine_ was enough to make her snap unfairly back.

“Why don’t you go ask Gert that?”

Karolina rocked back on her feet and moved her hands away from the dryer.

“I’m sorry.”

Molly’s hackles dropped immediately. She should’ve known better. Even if Karolina was treating her like a child on purpose, which Molly doubted, she was still just as tired as the rest of them. Molly wondered how long they could all go on without fighting. Sleep deprivation seemed to be just kindling for smoldering tensions, and it wouldn’t be long before their group started smoking. She shivered at the thought.

“Me too.”

Karolina smiled a half-smile. “Lets go get some sleep.”

It sounded like a lie.

 

Karolina crawled into the back of the van immediately. Molly watched, the door open, as Karolina shimmied in between Chase and Old Lace to drop down next to Nico. It was kind of cute, the way Nico’s arms immediately curled around her. Gert climbed in next, slipping into a spot next to Old Lace on the opposite side of Chase. Molly wanted to sigh. Instead, she shut the van and opened the passenger door.

Alex didn’t stop rubbing his eyes for ten minutes after they left the rest area. Molly decided against playing music—not only because it was late, but because she might super-strength bang her head into the door and smash it. They didn’t have a backup van, after all.

“Hey, Molly.” Molly snapped out of her thoughts. Alex’s thumbs twiddled on the wheel. “You don’t have to be here, you know.”

“Where even _is_ here?”

“Somewhere in Arizona, I think.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. But I meant… _here_.” Alex made a vague gesture. “Technically, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Molly could sense what Alex was getting at, and she didn’t like it. “None of us did anything wrong,” she pointed out. Alex shrugged as if to say _fair point_.

“You don’t have to stay with us. You can go back to what you had before… this.”

Molly felt herself clenching her fists. “Without you guys. Without _Gert?_ ”

“You’re in danger with us, it’s not safe—”

“It’s not _safe_ back at home either! It’ll just get sent to Graciela’s again, or _worse_ —” Molly felt her voice rising, partly with anger, partly with bubbling panic. Alex couldn’t send her home. He couldn’t make her go back. Alex rubbed his eyes again.

“I wouldn’t make you leave,” he said. “But you should know you have that option.”

_And be a coward? Take my easy route out because I can’t stick it out here? No thanks._

They drove the rest of the night in silence.

 

* * *

 

Karolina could hardly remember crawling into Nico’s arms the night before, but she thanked herself for having the presence of mind to do so. Nico still slept, her breath tickling Karolina’s neck and her hands tight around Karolina’s chest. It made her cheeks warm. She wouldn’t sit up. She wouldn’t.

After relishing in Nico’s presence, Karolina realized the van wasn’t rumbling with the effort of carrying six children and a dinosaur across the country. She cracked an eye open and peeked up at the window above her. The sky was just barely pale. Dawn.

She groaned.

“Hey, you’re up.” Gert sat beside Old Lace. “We just stopped. Alex is gonna try and get us a room here.”

“Where… is here?” Karolina blinked crust from her eyes. Nico mumbled something and rolled over, leaving Karolina to sorely miss the presence of her arms.

“The shittiest place we could find. It doesn’t even have a pool.” Gert stretched. “Although I think I did see something about free breakfast.”

Karolina blew out a breath. Of course. Not like they needed a pool.

“That’d be nice. If we can eat without…”

Gert rolled her eyes. “We’re in shithole nowhere, Arizona. I doubt anyone’s even _alive_ here, much less equipped with eyes and a brain.”

Alex threw open the back of the van. “We have a room.”

“Not even two?” Chase remarked. Karolina didn’t even know he was awake. Alex rolled his eyes.

“We’re wanted criminals, and paying for a motel room is kinda dumb when there’s police looking for you. We’re just gonna stay for the day and look at our options tomorrow.”

Molly appeared next to Chase. She looked exhausted.

“I’m hungry.”

“Breakfast doesn’t start until…” Alex checked his watch. “Six. And it’s five.”

“Five AM?” Gert groaned. Karolina decided to not reveal her typical sleeping pattern of nine in the evening to five in the morning.

“Yeah. And we should move this van before someone realizes it’s not ours.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Gert waved him off. Alex frowned. “Alright everyone, up and at ‘em,” Gert said loudly. Nico buried her head further into Karolina’s back. Karolina wished she could stay there all day.

Slowly, the six of them minus Alex dragged themselves into a somewhat awake state to begin the walk towards their room. Alex was gracious enough to drop them off in front of it (it was all the way in the back of the building—how fortunate). Karolina’s head hurt at the thought of Alex parking a mile away somewhere and trudging back here on foot. Her head hurt even more at the thought of them having to walk back to the van the next day.

Gert was lying about the pool. There totally was one, towards the back half of the S shape the motel made. It looked kinda nice, despite the mold growing underneath the chairs. There was something about the sad palm trees that tugged Karolina’s pity.

Nico stumbled on the way up the stairs and Karolina surprised herself with how quickly her hand flew back to snatch Nico’s shirt. Nico’s feet scraped the concrete stairs, her heels precariously teetering. Karolina leaned hard in the other direction until they both found balance again. They both stood still for a second, processing the succession of events.

“Thanks.” Nico swallowed.

“Yeah.” Karolina let go of Nico’s shirt and wiped her hand on her pants. Nico’s eyes followed the movement. They stared at each other too long. _Too long, too long, too—_

“Was it 201 or 202?” Gert yelled. Karolina broke the eye contact.

“202!”

 

They spent the day lounging around eating vending machine food. Chase and Nico raided the breakfast bar for them and returned with Alex, who had gotten hopelessly lost looking for their room. Karolina ate the cereal and horrible eggs and bagels that they brought back and slept for another few hours. When she woke again, night was settling in; Gert and Alex were poring over a map at the rickety desk, Chase and Molly were playing some card game she didn’t recognize, and Nico was fishing a soda out of the fridge. Presumably she had lost whatever game they’d been playing.

Karolina stretched a little. Nico seemed to catch the movement because their eyes met once again. Karolina noticed, not for the first time, how absolutely gorgeous Nico was. Her mouth felt dry.

“I win!” Molly giggled. Chase flopped down on the bed in defeat. Just like that, the magic was gone, and Karolina was once again forced back into reality. She mourned the loss.

“I’m starving,” Gert said in her usual slightly-too-loud-to-be-normal-speaking-but-too-quiet-to-be-shouting voice that she used when she addressed the group as a whole. “Who wants to come with me to smash a vending machine or something?”

Molly’s hand shot up into the air. “It’s BORING in here.”

“Better than the van,” Chase pointed out. Molly made some sort of grudging, agreeable noise.

Alex looked concernedly at the window. “Can you wait a bit? Until it gets darker.”

Gert made a sour face.

“Let's hit a drive-thru instead.”

Molly pouted but still agreed to accompany Gert to Jack-in-the-Box. Gert raised her hand as they were walking out to commandeer attention and said, “I’m buying in bulk! No orders!”

Chase frowned. “I don’t like their chicken.”

“Then you don’t have to eat it.” Gert shot back.

After Gert and Molly departed, Karolina lagged in bed for a while longer. She didn’t feel like watching Chase and Nico’s game, and they didn’t feel like inviting her to, which was fine. It was fine.

She kept her eyes closed for ten minutes before she finally gave up and sat up in bed.

“We saved you a Pepsi,” Nico said without looking up. “It’s cherry.” She slapped the ever-growing stack in between her and Chase. Whatever she did must have been a winning move, because Chase groaned and dropped his hand. Nico stuck out her tongue at him.

“What are you guys even playing?” Karolina asked, sitting up, vaguely conscious of her ratty shirt riding up her stomach. The dull ache on her ribs reminded her she hadn’t taken her bra off. She couldn’t remember the last time she had, in fact.

Nico and Chase looked at each other. “Molly taught us,” Chase said. “I can’t remember the name.”

“I think she called it sandwich. Wanna play?” Nico asked. Karolina wished she could capture the carefree look in Nico’s eyes, if only so that she could give it back to her when she saw the weight in her face, when she thought Karolina wasn’t looking. Those were the worst days.

“Sure.” She stood up and retrieved her cherry Pepsi from the fridge. Alex said nothing the entire time—he had finally stilled from taking notes. Karolina wondered if he fell asleep.

“Okay, so…” Nico began dealing the cards in three equal piles. Karolina tucked her feet under her and listened very attentively, totally one hundred percent focused on the game and _not_ Nico’s lipstick-less lips, or her deft hands sorting cards, or the way she talked…

“Got it?”

Karolina stared, wide-eyed. Nico waited expectantly for an answer. Chase looked away, and Karolina was _positive_ he was trying not to laugh. She wanted to smack him.

“Yeah.” She smiled nervously.

 

She did absolutely did not get it.

It became apparent rather quickly that they were all supposed to, in order, lay a card face-up on the stack. What was _not_ apparent was the seemingly random times at which Chase or Nico would slap the pile. When you slapped the pile, you got the cards. Nico seemed to be quite the pro, and not only because Chase’s hands were bright red, but because his pile was dwindling almost as fast as Karolina’s.

“Karolina, you’re supposed to hit it,” Chase said, turning over an eight of hearts.

“I’m just slow,” Karolina mumbled defensively, laying a queen of spades. Chase very nearly slapped the card in his eagerness to finally acquired some cards. He frowned, and didn’t take the pile.

“I thought it was a king,” he grumbled.

“Boo,” Nico said. “Cough up.”

Chase took two cards and put them at the bottom of the pile. His hand was down to definitely less than twenty cards. Karolina had three.

Nico turned over an eight of clubs. She slapped it before Karolina had the chance to blink.

“That was cheating!” Chase dropped his hand. “You _saw_ what it was before you put it down!”

“I did not! K, tell him that wasn’t cheating.”

“Uh…”

“She didn’t even hear the rules!” Chase half-shouted.

Nico looked up the ceiling and mouthed something that looked like _Mother help me_. “Fine. Whatever.” Nico left the stack where it was instead of claiming it for her conspicuously large hand.

They played until Karolina ran out of cards, and then she watched. Nico and Chase only managed to carry on so long until Chase, too, ran out, and Nico proclaimed herself victorious.

“I’m starving,” Chase complained. “Where’s my mini churros?”

Nico shoved him. “Gert didn’t get you any because she got _me_ some Chocolate Overload Cake.”

“We’re back!” Gert shouted, announcing her presence. Molly trudged in behind her, carrying two large paper bags with _Jack’s_ printed on the sides. “We did _not_ get desserts.”

Chase and Nico both complained loudly at that. Gert shot them both a withering glare. Molly spread everything out on the desk that Alex occupied. He woke up to the smell of food (if he’d been sleeping at all).

Karolina rooted in the pile after Chase, Molly, and Alex decimated the “desirable” food. She flicked a stray fry that was teetering on the edge of the desk and grabbed herself a chicken sandwich. Her stomach rumbled angrily, but she wanted everyone to eat their fill before she pigged out.

Gert and Nico sat with Karolina on the second bed that wasn’t occupied by the jocks + Alex. Gert had loaded herself with breakfast burritos and a very large soft drink. Nico made a face at the amount of chicken nuggets she ended up with.

“It was cheap.” Gert shrugged, also spotting Nico’s distaste. Nico said nothing, just began reluctantly working her way through them. Little conversation could develop during the first few minutes of everyone eating (they were all busy with filling their hungry stomachs), but after Karolina began to slow down through her second sandwich, it became easier to banter while they ate.

“FMK Mothman, Samara from _Mass Effect_ , and... Karolina, what’s a hot robot?”

Karolina choked. “I don’t—I—what?”

“A hot robot.” Gert pressed her lips impatiently. “The razor from that one shaving commercial. The sexist one.”

“They’re all sexist.” Nico looked mildly queasy. Gert shoved her.

“True, but not the point. FMK Mothman, Samara, and the hot razor.”

“I’d fuck the hot razor but—” Nico made a face. “I think I’m gonna have to kill her.” Gert barked a laugh. “Um...fuck Samara, marry Mothman, kill the hot razor.”

Karolina nodded. This was a normal conversation.

“Karolina, FMK Nessie, the aliens from _Arrival_ —did you see Arrival?”

Karolina rolled her eyes. “Yes.” She was absolutely not going to even hypothetically fuck one.

“Okay...FMK Nessie, Arrival aliens, and that one android girl—Sophia.” Nico smacked her lips as if she were satisfied with the choices she’d laid out.

“She doesn’t count,” Gert objected. “The robot has to look like a robot.”

Nico scoffed. “Who cares if the robot sex is human-passing?”

“Nobody said anything about robot sex!” Karolina objected. Nico and Gert both gave her an odd look.

“We’re playing Fuck, Marry, Kill,” Gert said. “With robots, aliens, and cryptids. Potentially the robot will be chosen for sex.”

Karolina groaned. “I wouldn’t fuck her anyways. Marry Nessie, kill _Arrival_ aliens...oh I guess I am fucking her.” Karolina frowned.

“Who are you fucking?” Chase asked from the other bed. It appeared that they took up Sandwich again.

“Sophia the android girl,” Gert said before Karolina could exclaim “ _Nobody!”_

“I’m RIGHT HERE,” Molly interjected. “NO TALKING ABOUT SEX.”

“Speaking of—”

“I SAID NO.” Molly interrupted Gert before she could go off about something.

“— _Arrival_ , have you guys actually looked into the linguistics behind it?”

“No,” Chase said, looking actually eager to listen, which scared Karolina more than the onslaught of information she would’ve received regardless.

“I’m going to bed!” Molly loudly announced. Gert looked annoyed. Karolina hadn’t even realized the late hour—if anything, she felt more awake now than she had in days. Normally, she was a morning person; she did all her best thinking in her morning math and English classes. Now, the hour was creeping on eleven in the evening and she felt as though if she tried to sleep her brain would Scream.

“I’m gonna check out the pool,” she said. She didn’t want to be in a room of sleeping bodies.

“I’ll come with you,” Gert replied easily. “I wanna see it.”

Karolina nodded sourly. She’d been hoping Nico would offer.

Of course, she was glad for the company at all, so she and Gert took off to find the pool, ignoring Alex’s protests behind them. The balcony was well-lit, and Karolina was pretty sure the pool was on the inner side of the S shape.

Gert, for once, remained in amiable silence while they wandered. Karolina wasn’t in a huge rush—she wanted to get some air and stretch her legs.

“So… you can fly?” Gert finally asked. Karolina wondered how long she’d been waiting to ask. She wondered how she knew.

“Yeah.” Karolina remembered her stomach dropping when she fell from the roof, remembered the rush of adrenaline, the feeling of weightlessness, the terror and giddiness and awe when she discovered she wasn’t falling because she was glittering like a rainbow.

“That’s… pretty awesome.”

Karolina grinned with that memory of exhilaration. “Yeah, it’s…”

“Scary,” Gert said. “Or it would be, for me, I guess. I’m afraid of heights, and lowkey your powers kinda freak me out, so I guess I’m glad it’s you and not me—which is NOT meant to be an insult or anything—”

“It’s okay,” Karolina said. She did have to be really glad heights didn’t freak her out as much as _falling_ from them, and Gert was right—her anxiety would’ve made her a poor choice for glowing hands, shooting light beams, and flying. Karolina could already barely handle it as it was. She rubbed her bracelet.

Gert noticed the motion and her face fell. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That I...brought that up.”

The way Gert’s demeanor changed— _oh._

The last time Karolina had used her powers, she’d gotten defeated and kidnapped. Not the best association.

“It’s okay,” Karolina repeated more firmly. “It’s okay.”

“But it shouldn’t be, you know?” Karolina cocked her head at Gert. “We’re just kids. Teenagers if you want to be anal about it. We shouldn’t _have_ to deal with murder charges and dinosaurs and superpowers and not having a house.”

“Plenty of kids grow up without houses.”

Gert shot her a look. “Not my point.”

Karolina knew her point, but what could they do? It wasn’t fair—they all knew it. But whether it was fair didn’t matter, because it was what they were stuck with until they figured out how to change the game.

“I mean, yeah—this, whole thing… having powers… it’s something to get used to, for sure.”

“For sure,” Gert repeated. “Especially when you don’t know _anything_ about them, like—that would drive me crazy? I’d go insane trying to figure out why.”

Karolina frowned, thinking about Jonah. How he’d glowed—but it was a different color, which was odd. His glowing was pure white, hers was pink and blue and yellow and probably loads of others that she hadn’t noticed yet. She must have this because of him—whether it be a curse or a blessing (her inner moral purist screamed CURSE), it was because her father was an unknown variable in the equation, and Karolina was going to have to do some digging if she wanted the truth.

“Well,” Karolina scrambled for anything to redirect the conversation. “What about Old Lace?”

“Touché, Lucy in the Sky.”

Karolina frowned, mildly annoyed at the (perfectly accurate) nickname.

“Don’t bring The Beatles into this.”

“Oh, my bad. Touché… yeah I don’t know any other flying women who may or may not glow.”

“Hmm,” Karolina scrunched her nose in thought. “...Captain Marvel?”

“You _wish_ ,” Gert laughed, shoving Karolina’s arm.

“Yeah, cause—” _her powers didn’t come from her objectively evil father_ , Karolina finished in her head, but snapped her mouth shut when she realized where that thought was heading, and she didn’t know how Gert would react. That was a lie, she did know—with a lecture about ethics and other shit Karolina only kind of understood, and that she wasn’t in the mood for. Karolina blew out a breath, blinking back tears. How was she supposed to reconcile _this_ with herself—her powers to everything she wanted to be, everything she wanted to believe? How could she use her powers when they existed, intrinsic in their nature, as evil and vile?

Gert frowned. Karolina shot her a glance out of the corner of her eye, but she had already looked away, her pace slowing until they both stood still, right next to a brightly lit soda machine.

“I’m gonna go back.” Gert yawned, too large and loud to be real, but Karolina decided against pressing her. She could _really_ use the alone time to clear her head.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, and good luck finding the pool.”

 

* * *

 

Nico had just barely started drifting off when Gert shook her awake. She groaned—she’d been awake _all day_ and nobody seemed to respect the fact that she needed sleep just as much as any of the rest of them.

“Hey— _hey_.” Gert was stronger than she looked—Nico’s whole body rolled with her shoving.

“Whaaaaat,” Nico mumbled, trying so hard to chase back the snatches of sleep that were quickly receding from her grasp.

“Wake up; you don’t even need sleep, you vampire.”

There it was. Nico sat up, hoping that the hateful energy she could conjure made its way into the withering glare she projected onto Gert. It either didn’t work or Gert was just immune to her hatred. Nico suspected the latter of holding more truth.

“What do you want?” She felt too numb to put venom behind her words.

“I’m going to bed, but Karolina could probably use some company right now.” Gert bit her lip, looking anxious.

“Karolina?” Nico echoed, kicking her sluggish thoughts to work faster. Gert rolled her eyes.

“ _Yes._ Tall, blonde, you kinda kiss—”

Nico clapped her hand on Gert’s mouth, glancing wildly at Alex’s sleeping form on the other bed. She knew he had no right—no reason to know she was kissing other people. It didn’t stop the guilt.

Gert seemed to follow Nico’s thought process (which was impressive—Nico couldn’t follow her own in this state), and understanding dawned on her. When Nico released her hand, Gert sighed comically.

“You know I don’t slutshame, but—”

“I’m not a _slut_ ,” Nico whispered angrily. “I kissed _two_ people.”

Gert made a noncommittal noise. “Whatever. Karolina’s upset right now and I don’t think she wants me around.”

Nico narrowed her eyes. “Did you start it?”

“Does it matter?” Gert retorted, but yeah, there was definitely some layer of guilt to that statement. Nico groaned and stood up.

“Let me find pants.”

“Oh, you don’t need those,” Gert replied in a much lighter voice that would’ve earned her a swat if Nico wasn’t distracted and tired and unwilling to make such a racket. She found her one pair of pants strewn on the floor (she hated sleeping in anything remotely scratchy, which hadn’t been a problem at home, but here it was) and bustled out the door before Gert could embarrass her any further.

She had no idea where the pool was.

Nico walked around, shivering, for what was probably the better part of half an hour. Who knew deserts got so goddamn cold at night? Not her.

She eventually found the pool somewhere near where she began. Karolina sat at the edge of the water, her legs glowing in the blue water. Nico found herself wondering where her bracelet was. Her eyes looked blotchy.

“Hey,” Nico said, feeling kind of stupid. Karolina looked up, and at that second Nico felt infinitely more stupid for not realizing how much distance was in between them. She walked over, keeping eye contact the entire time. Awkwardness permeated the air. Nico could taste it.

Karolina stared down at the water again when Nico sat down beside her. She hardly noticed the water soaking the cuffs of her pants when she plopped her feet in the water next to Karolina’s.

“What’s up?”

Karolina snorted. A tear fell from her chin.

“I’m—I don’t know.”

Nico mulled that over. She could accept that for an answer—but it wasn’t the real answer.

“Yeah, you do.”

Karolina looked over at her. Her eyes were so blue—not blue, like the water, or the splashes of blue Nico could see in her skin when she glowed and glittered—a different blue, one that was clear and deep and dark, like the ocean or a thunderstorm. Nico shivered harder than she had been. She suddenly remembered the freezing cold.

“I—yeah. Um,” Karolina twiddled her hands. Nico was about to prompt her again when she took a deep breath and rushed out “Jonah’s my father. My real father. My—my powers, they… they’re from him.”

Nico felt like maybe Gert hadn’t woken her up at all, that she _had_ managed to fall asleep and this was a dream. She looked down at their hands nearly touching on the wet brick.

“Wow.”

Karolina nodded and drew her legs up from the pool. They didn’t stop glowing. Nico found herself admiring them.

“Yeah.”

“So...how did Gert start this?”

Karolina looked at her like she asked how frogs turned blue. “What?”

“Gert woke me up and told me you were upset, and it kinda sounded like she started it.”

“Oh.” Karolina plopped her legs back down with a little splash. Her lights looked much better in the water, where they could swirl and blend and filter through the clear liquid under a bubbly surface. “She asked me about my… powers.”

Powers was one way to put it, sure.

“And that got you thinking...about everything else.”

“Yep.” Karolina clicked her tongue. Her tears were gone. “Pretty much.”

“That sucks.” Nico blew out a breath. They sat so closely that Nico hardly had to move for their shoulders to brush, barely had to twitch for their hands to be entwined. So she did. Karolina inhaled when Nico touched her hand like she’d been shocked. Nico drew back sharply.

“Sorry.”

“No—oh my God, no,” Karolina spluttered a little. “It’s not—I’m—”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“I just—I don’t want to—”

“That’s okay—”

They stared at each other for a second. Karolina’s eyes bespoke something she didn’t say aloud—Nico was sure hers did the same.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I just—” Nico inhaled a little, steadying her suddenly racing heartbeat, trying to conjure the words for what she wanted. Her mouth felt dry. _I don’t want to mess this up_ . _I don’t want to mess this up, and I know I will, because that’s all I ever do—_

“Nico?” Karolina leaned over a little, closing the tiniest bit of distance, getting just close enough to her that all Nico could think about were her lips. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah—yeah, I just,” Nico stared at Karolina’s eyes, illuminated by the pool lights and her own, dancing with so many colors that Nico couldn’t focus because all she could see were Karolina’s lights, and her eyes searching hers, and a thousand other things that didn’t need to be in her head at the moment. She knew Karolina was waiting for an answer, waiting for something from her, and she didn’t know what to say.

“What’s wrong?” Karolina’s eyes were so, so blue. Goddamnit.

“I don’t—” Nico inhaled and rushed out the next words before she could overthink, before she could dismantle herself. “I don’t want to ruin this.”

Karolina looked at her, something unreadable in her eyes. When did Nico get so bad at guessing what people were thinking? Probably ever since she folded in on herself like a house of cards and cut everyone she loved off for two years.

“What’s ‘this?’”

“...Us, I guess.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t know we were an ‘us.’” Karolina pursed her lips. Her voice softened, something else in her tone, but Nico didn’t know what it was. Doubt? Hope?

“Are… are we not? We don’t—we don’t have to be.”

“What about Alex?” That’s what was in Karolina’s eyes—challenge. She was challenging Nico, daring her to decide. Daring her to choose.

“Alex…” Nico looked away. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to open that wound again, didn’t want to—

“I don’t want to just be a rebound, or—or whatever you call it.” Karolina’s voice sounded so small, so… defeated. Like she thought her words were the heaviest thing in the world. Nico felt hear heart fracture, felt the edges of her bleed at the sound of her voice in so much… disappointment? Is that what she was feeling?

Nico took in a deep, shaky breath. She couldn’t blame Karolina for thinking Alex was in the way of their relationship (was it a relationship? She had yet to properly mull over the ‘us’ question)—she’d done that herself. She’d utterly failed to convey how _important_ Karolina was to her, how irreplaceable she’d become in her life, how _devastating_ Karolina’s loss to her would be. Nico had already lost Amy; what would she do if Karolina left her behind, in the dust, by herself, with her mistakes and everything she should’ve said but didn’t, everything she should’ve done but didn’t, every wall she should’ve let Karolina into for no reason other than because Karolina _deserved_ that?

“You’re _not_ .” Nico meant it so badly, wanted Karolina to understand that she would _never_ be a rebound. She hated that her voice sounded only just above a whisper. “You’re important to me.”

Karolina bit her lip, looking thoughtful. _Doubtful_. But she said nothing, so Nico pressed on, hoping she could say anything to make Karolina understand.

“Alex… I don’t know if I ever even—ever even _really_ liked him.” Nico puffed out a breath, thinking. “I mean, like, I did, but then he… he hurt me. And I don’t know if I can forgive him for that. So… whatever we were, it’s over.”

Nico knew it was kind of a shitty explanation, but hopefully it got her point across—that she was _done_ with Alex, and she only had eyes for Karolina. Maybe only that first point was apparent, but Nico hoped to make the second one clear enough in the future.

“I’m sorry.”

Nico shrugged. It had been weeks ago but it felt like years. They had bigger things to worry about (of course, Nico was still _furious_ about it, and she was never going to think about Alex in a romantic way again, but again—no distractions).

“I should’ve told you sooner.”

“You didn’t _have_ to, though,” Karolina ran her hands over her arms, also apparently noticing the biting cold. “It’s not like you owed me anything.”

“I kind of did, though,” Nico said before she thought about what she was saying. She stopped herself from biting her lip when Karolina looked at her, stopped herself from looking away as their eyes met.

“Did you?”

“I mean… I kind of kissed you? So you at least deserved an explanation.”

Karolina shrugged. “I kissed you first.”

Nico hummed. That was true.

They sat near the water for a while, Nico watching Karolina’s legs glow in the pool water, saying nothing, touching all the way from shoulder to toe. Nico twined their hands together and lay her head on Karolina’s shoulder, comfortable in the silence this time. She thought about how her hair was completely down (probably tangled—she didn't want to think about that), her makeup absent, her clothing rumpled, and despite all of that, Karolina was still looking at her like… _that_.

Like Nico was the most precious thing in the world. It made her feel vulnerable, open, exposed. And if Karolina kept looking at her like that, well, Nico might just be okay with that.

Nico leaned in, praying Karolina wouldn’t pull away.

She didn’t.

They kissed like it was the end of the world—Nico drank on Karolina’s lips like it was her lifeline. She held Karolina to her, closely, fiercely. Their contact was electrifying. Nico’s sleepiness vanished under Karolina’s gentle hands grazing her hips, her warm lips that sparkled with every color of the rainbow. She was glowing so brightly and Nico wanted to kiss every bit of her, tell her that she was beautiful and unique and she never wanted to let her go. She ran her tongue along Karolina’s bottom lip, to which Karolina responded with a surprised _mrmph!_ Nico started to rear back, afraid she’d gone and screwed something up again, but Karolina’s hand tightened on her hip and she tugged at Nico’s lip with her teeth. God, that was hot.

Nico lost track of time in Karolina’s lips, lost count of their pushes and pulls. Karolina tasted like—well, like Karolina. There was no romantic ‘summer rain and strawberries,’ and Nico didn’t care in the least, mostly because she couldn’t think about anything but drowning herself in Karolina anyways. They tested boundaries previously untested, cautious of one another as they discovered how their tongues fit together (Nico was glad she left her lip ring in the bathroom), but if Karolina kept teasing her with her teeth then Nico might just not be bothered to care that they were messy and unpracticed.

Karolina seemed to notice that she was glowing, because she pulled back with a wet _smack_ and looked down with mortification. Nico wanted to giggle.

“I don’t know how to make it stop,” Karolina panted. Nico pressed another kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“You don’t have to,” she mumbled against Karolina’s skin, and she meant it. She meant every word.

Karolina sighed, and Nico frowned, letting her lips graze over Karolina’s neck. Her hands in Nico’s shirt tightened, twisting the fabric around her fingers. Nico didn’t know whether or not she should stop, but Karolina’s fingers were pressing into her lower back, some of her skin pressed to Nico’s own, and now that they’d been making out for a good five minutes (at least), Nico was eager to get back to business. But Karolina wouldn’t have slowed down if that was what _she_ wanted, after all, so Nico hummed, trying to come up with words to expand on her statement.

“I meant what I said. This should never make you feel afraid,” and for emphasis Nico placed a slow, lingering kiss just underneath Karolina’s jaw, “...or ashamed.”

She could feel Karolina frown, so she pulled away to look Karolina in the eyes once more. It was kind of hard, considering all the glowing, and Nico ended up half-squinting. The vulnerability in them almost shocked her, the way she looked like she was holding back tears, the way she wouldn’t look Nico in the eyes but Nico could still see the turmoil.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Karolina sniffed. “Yeah, I… I don’t know. It’s just—” Karolina broke off and leaned back to look up at the sky. Nico saw a faint mark where she’d been kissing and smiled to herself. “I mean, my _worst_ fear is that my powers would turn out to be evil, and now? Now I know they _are_. How do I even… even try to deal with that?”

Nico’s heart ached.

“Hey…” Nico reached up her hand to cup Karolina’s cheek. Karolina leaned into it, closing her eyes and just being there with her, being in the moment. Nico stroked her cheekbone with her thumb. “We’re not our parents. You having these… powers doesn’t make you a bad person, even if they come from an evil someone. Hell, if everything that came from bad things were bad, we’d be a rotten bunch.” Karolina smiled a little at that, and Nico lifted her chin a little to make eye contact again. “But we’re not. And _you’re_ not. You’re the best out of all of us.”

“Except Molly,” Karolina said, her voice a little warbled from tears.

“Except Molly,” Nico agreed. Karolina leaned forward and kissed her again, softer than their fiercely affirming, hot, heavy kissing. It tasted sweeter this time.

“But I do need to stop this, probably,” Karolina said with a teary smile. Nico reached for her bracelet where it lay next to the pool. She accidentally knocked it in— _shit_ . It fell in with a tiny _ploop_.

They both stared after it for a second, mouths open, watching it float down to the bottom.

“Does it rust?” Nico found herself asking. Karolina shook her head.

“I never even took it off to shower.”

“Huh.”

Karolina sighed and jumped into the pool before Nico could blink. She shrieked when the water splashed magnificently and soaked her. Nico thought about jumping in after her, but Karolina resurfaced with her bracelet in one hand, paddling with the other and a fat grin on her face. There was something mischievous in it, and Nico at least had the sense to be suspicious before Karolina swam over and pulled Nico in.

The water was _freezing_. She was going to die.

She broke the surface of the water and gasped.

“Not funny!” She yelled. Karolina laughed, loudly. She still glowed, having not put on the bracelet yet. Nico splashed her.

“It was, and you know it!” Karolina shrieked. She tossed her bracelet onto the brick, paddling around like a giant, glowing golden retriever. Nico couldn’t shake the image of a mermaid from her head, with the way the water reflected her light—the whole pool glowed swirls of blue, pink, and yellow. Mostly pink.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Nico said, teeth chattering, treading water. Karolina spat water onto Nico’s face and she squealed. Loudly.

Nico crawled out of the pool, eventually, despite Karolina dragging her back in a good three or four times. They eventually settled on Nico sitting beside the pool, her legs in the water, and Karolina leaning on the wall next to her. She’d put her bracelet back on after one of the times she pulled Nico into the pool, and it reflected the pool light now.

“You never answered me,” Karolina said, idly swirling her hands on Nico’s bare calves. Nico pretended the goosebumps were from the cold.

“About…?”

“Us.” Karolina looked up at her. “Are we an ‘us’?”

Nico hesitated. She wanted to say yes, so, _so_ badly. She wanted to kiss Karolina again right there and again and again and again for as long as she lived and breathed. But then, while Nico knew whatever Alex was to her was gone, now, he deserved an explanation. As much as Karolina had deserved to know what happened, Alex deserved closure— _real_ closure, not just Nico cutting him off. Nico bit her lip, knowing what her answer should be, knowing what she _wanted_ it to be, but the guilt made her ‘ _yes’_ die on her lips.

Karolina seemed to take Nico’s hesitation badly, because she pulled her hands back. Nico felt her heart tear in half.

“I—” Nico’s thoughts were were abruptly cut short by a siren wailing. Karolina and Nico made eye contact and Nico understood her immediately, for once. _Police._

Nico shot to her feet faster than Karolina could climb out of the pool. When Nico offered her hand to her, she pointedly ignored it—Nico bit her lip and squashed down the tears. They sprinted back to the room—just as everyone else was hurrying out.

“Where _were_ you?” Alex demanded. Gert remained noticeably silent.

“We need to go,” Chase interrupted before Nico could half-ass a response, and pointed. Blue lights flashed around the side of the building, and they would be spotted any second.

Molly lifted Nico and Gert (the slowest runners), and they all took off running, away from the sirens and lights.

“Good thing we didn’t unpack,” Karolina gasped. It was true—they had left pretty much everything in the van so that they wouldn’t have to carry it a mile back. Even Old Lace had remained, with a stern warning from Gert not to be spotted. Nico wondered if the dinosaur had a concept of being seen, but she guessed they would find out when they got back.

Alex took the lead once they got out of eyesight of the motel, and Molly dropped Nico and Gert to the ground.

“Ow, Molls.”

“Sorry.”

Nico picked herself up with the little remaining dignity she could muster. It was a good thing they could go slower now—in addition to being the slowest runner out of the group (her legs were short!), she was pretty sure her knee had twisted and her bones were still aching from the icy dunk Karolina had given her.

“That looks painful,” Chase said, looking at Nico’s knee. She hadn’t even noticed the blood.

“Sorry!” Molly squeaked, looking guilty.

“‘S okay,” Nico mumbled, testing her weight on that foot. It ached, but when did it not, lately?

They managed to make their way back to the van with little incidence. Chase took the keys from Alex and they trundled back onto the road, roaring away in the opposite direction of the police cars and the fear.

“Where’s Old Lace?” Gert screamed after a minute.

“ _Shit_ ,” Chase said, slamming the brakes.

“Too late!” Alex yelled back. The sirens were getting louder, but Nico couldn’t see a car. They were safe—for now, but Chase had to gas it or they wouldn’t be. She felt the engine groan with the effort.

 

Once they were a ‘safe' distance from the motel, the others seemed to relax—save Gert, who was sniffling into Molly’s shoulder. Molly looked just as distressed. They were all worried about Old Lace.

“I think we need to address the elephant in the room,” Alex said after a minute. Chase’s grip visibly tightened on the wheel. Nico wildly wondered if he knew about the brewing tension between her and Karolina for a moment, before she remembered the police.

“Yeah. How did they find us?” She asked. The thought nagged at her. Were they being tracked? What did they even have with them? They’d left almost everything when they ran away—they’d been so careful to ditch their phones and credit cards. Did someone at the motel call the police?

“I think we’re being tracked.” Chase stared at the road. “This isn’t the first time this has happened.”

That was true. The first couple of nights since they ran, police found them almost every night, and they’d had to drop everything and run. Nico remembered the terror vividly.

“By what?” She asked. Nico was certain that nothing they had was from their parents.

The silence deafened her.

“By… by this. Maybe.” Karolina held up her hand. Nico’s blood turned to ice. The bracelet? The only thing keeping Karolina’s powers in check?

Alex nodded, like it made perfect sense.

“You’ve had that since you were a kid. And if it’s something blocking your powers, well… yeah. Makes sense.”

“Yeah. I mean, your parents aren’t stupid.” Chase checked the mirror and changed lanes. “Of course they’d put a tracker in your bracelet.”

“Hang on,” Nico said. Her head spun. “We could all have trackers.”

“We can start with this.” Gert seemed to pull her head out of her anxiety long enough to chip in.

“Yeah. We can throw out more things as we go along,” Molly added. Nico took a bracing breath.

Karolina stayed quiet the whole time, letting everyone’s arguments bounce off of her. Nico scooted closer, unsure if Karolina would appreciate her concern right then, but she at least had to try.

“Are you… okay with this?” She kept her voice low.

Karolina looked like she might cry, but she nodded. None of the former apprehension remained in her face.

“It’s… it makes sense.”

Nico took her hand. Karolina smiled a little tearily. Whatever they were, an ‘us’ or not, Nico knew they could talk it out later. Just for tonight, they could have each other—no labels, no restrictions. Because Karolina needed her. And Nico was okay with that.

They’d talk it out in the morning.

Alex rolled down his window, and Karolina removed her bracelet. She handed it to him without looking at it. He threw it out, and Karolina watched the back window. They sat in silence, waiting, watching, praying.

When Karolina inevitably began glowing sometime around when Nico started tracing circles on Karolina’s palms, Gert passed them a blanket over Old Lace, and Nico wrapped the two of them in it. She still hadn’t forgiven Karolina for possibly giving her hypothermia, so what better time to make up for it? The blanket dimmed Karolina’s lights enough that it was manageable, and Nico fell asleep with her arms wrapped around Karolina’s waist, her nose in Karolina’s shoulder.

 

* * *

 

Gert couldn’t have described the relief she felt when Old Lace appeared, dodging in and out of view, running beside and slightly behind the van.

“How fast can she go?” Molly asked, following Gert’s gaze. Gert shrugged. Old Lace was special—a genetic conglomeration of birds and reptiles. Who knew her limits?

Gert’s anxiety had steadily grown worse over the past week. She supposed it was because of her lack of meds, but she couldn’t do anything about that, so she tried instead to control it by recalling things her admittedly terrible therapist had told her. _Breathe. Don’t think about anything negative for more than 12 seconds. Stay in the moment. Don’t worry about things you can’t control._ What a load of horseshit, David. Thanks.

Molly had helped. She kept Gert talking about stupid things that helped distract her in the moment. That morning, when Chase had finally crashed, Gert drove for a while. Molly picked the song _Upper West Side_ and after it played through the first verse, she’d said:

“You ever think about how we’re the bitches from the Upper West Side?”

Gert had nearly swerved. “Watch your language.”

“Sorry. But like, you know? We’re all rich.”

Gert snorted. “Rich doesn’t automatically make you evil.”

Molly had raised her brows. “Oh? That wasn’t what you said last week when you were saying you’d kill Elon Musk yourself.”

“There’s… a difference. Besides, we’re not rich anymore.”

Molly had conceded that argument. But it was little things like that, small distractions that kept Gert sane in the back of the van. _Especially_ when Karolina drove, like she was doing now.

She’d promised to pull over if she started glowing again. So far, it had been about two hours with nothing major. Gert wondered what it was that controlled her powers—if there was some biological trigger that caused it, or if it was truly as random as Karolina claimed.

Karolina drove fine—at least, when someone was in the front seat other than Nico. Gert was well aware that Nico was the reason Karolina’s driving was poor half the time. She saw the looks, the smiles, the giggling and most of all the _eye fucking_. Gert felt like she was watching something obscene every time they looked at each other.

“Hey, did you know there are kids in this car?” Gert asked loudly after a violent swerve. “That don’t want to die?”

“Sorry!”

Gert snorted. “Nico, it’s my turn for shotgun.”

Nico stuck her tongue out and switched the song. _Hypnotic_ began playing and Nico turned up the volume enough that Gert was positive she did it just to drown out Gert’s protests. Karolina apparently didn’t notice the quarrel, like the oblivious ass she was, and turned it down to say “Nico’s only been up here for like, half an hour.”

 _Yeah, and in that half hour you’ve almost had EIGHT car accidents,_ Gert wanted to say. She opened her mouth to retort something else, but Nico began singing loudly.

 

_Tied ribbons on your top hat_

_Telling me I'm all that, just like the girls from your hometown_

_Sweet blooded and up-stranded, see_

_If I can stand it, shrinking in the shallow water_

 

“KAROLINA!” Gert shrieked. Karolina jerked the wheel to avoid the oncoming hot pink Mercedes that was minding its own business before Karolina drifted into his lane. Angry honking sounded from the other car.

“How do you swerve this much on a straight road?!” _Don’t say because you're gay,_ Gert silently pleaded. Karolina sighed. It was nine now. Nine near-accidents in half an hour. “How did you get your license? Did your dad pay off the instructor?”

Karolina pouted. “I _earned_ it.”

“Sure.”

 

Hours later, they pulled into what was _probably_ a grove in the woods. Honestly, she hadn’t paid attention because Karolina’s driving was going to give her a panic attack if she spent any more brainpower on in than she had to.

The sun was just beginning to set when Karolina finally turned the car off and Gert could escape the metal death machine. Old Lace came trotting up to them when Gert threw open the back doors, and she almost cried with relief.

“Hey, girl,” she cooed, stroking the dinosaur’s wrinkled face. Old Lace chirped in reply. “I bet you’re exhausted. You can sleep, you know.”

Old Lace made a sound Gert chose to take as agreement, and padded off into the woods. Karolina appeared beside Gert.

“Where even are we?” Gert asked, squinting at their surroundings. Was that… a cliff side? She walked over to see.

“No idea.” Karolina shrugged. “We _are_ back in Cali though.”

Gert bristled at that, but bit her tongue. Was Karolina just a massive, _massive_ moron? Being in California was ten times as dangerous as anywhere else. Like, sure, they were wanted criminals across the whole country, but they were _really_ unlikely to be recognized in like, Georgia.

Gert ranted in her head about Karolina’s utter stupidity, and she became so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice she was slipping off a rock cliff until it was too late. Karolina darted forwards and grabbed her arm just as the earth fell away beneath Gert.

Gert’s heart jumped—her stomach dropped, and she felt her anxiety soar. She could have _died_ , and the person that saved her was the same person who almost killed her nearly twenty times today.

“Are you all right?” Karolina had eyes wide, like a deer in the headlights. Gert wondered how she managed to catch her at all.

“Yeah.” Gert hated how strangled her voice sounded, hated to admit how close she was to a panic attack right there. _She could have died._ “Yeah. Can you pull me up?”

Karolina grunted with the effort but managed to drag Gert back onto solid ground. Gert’s heart raced. She closed her eyes and felt the wetness of tears slide down her cheeks. She pressed a hand to them underneath her glasses.

“Hey, are you okay?” Karolina held her shoulders. Her hands were still soft, like they’d always been. Gert nodded, a little numb.

“Where’s Molly?” She managed to choke out. Karolina looked around, her lips pursed.

“Do you want me to go look for her?”

Gert nodded again, not trusting her words—she could feel panic bubbling in her chest. It felt tight and unwelcome. Karolina dashed off and Gert sank to the ground, unable to stand without Karolina’s arms holding her up.

She _hated_ it—all of it. The dependency, the fear, even just being weak around Molly when she was supposed to be the big sister, the protector, the level headed one with enough sense to keep them all alive, especially now. But Molly was the only one who could calm her down when she got into hysterics like this—she’d sing, or hold her, or let her lie down, or reassure her in the way only Molly could.

Speaking of, she burst through the trees and stared at Gert on her knees. Gert felt humiliation take over her. Molly shouldn’t see her like this.

Molly knelt down beside her and hugged her tightly.

“Breathe,” she said, and Gert took a deep breath. Molly nodded seriously, and Gert was tempted to laugh. It was kind of sad how used to this she was. Molly looked Gert in the eyes. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Gert nodded. “I almost—I almost died,” she said. Molly raised her eyebrows.

“That cliff was only like, two feet high.”

Oh. It had looked a lot taller when Gert was dangling off of it. She laughed a little and felt a tear drip off her chin.

“I’m sorry—”

“Nope.” Molly said, and hugged her again. “No saying sorry.”

Gert wanted to protest, but decided against it.

“Thanks, Molls. I’m—I’m okay now.” Gert pushed up her glasses and wiped her eyes on her jacket.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Help me up, will you?”

Molly stood up and held out her hands for Gert. She took them and hauled herself to her feet.

“Where’d everyone else go?”

“They’re down at the beach.”

Gert paused. “The _beach_ ?” _What was Karolina thinking?_

“Yeah.” Molly seemed to see the anger in Gert’s face, because she quickly added, “It’s a secret beach. Really secluded. Nobody will see us.”

Gert kept her suspicions private while Molly led her down the path that circumvented the cliffside that Gert ‘almost died’ on, and _wow_.

The beach was gorgeous, and—Molly was right—completely hidden from anywhere else on the coast. Huge willow trees grew on an outcropping to Gert’s right, which shielded them on that side. On the left was a sheer cliff face, tall enough that Gert was glad she hadn’t fallen off of that one.

“It’s amazing,” Gert said after a minute.

Karolina and Chase were kicking up the perfectly white sand near the ocean line. They took turns shoving each other in. Nico stood off to the side looking mildly amused at them. Alex stood even further to the side, looking not amused at all.

Poor Alex. Gert wanted to feel sorry for him but… she had to face it, Karolina and Nico were so much better for each other, and not even just because it was gay. Karolina glowed (not literally, but also literally) so much more now. Nico looked more relaxed. They were just Better.

Of course, Gert let Nico make her own decisions, even if she disagreed.

Molly raced down to body slam Chase into the water. Karolina screamed when the water splashed her.

“You’re already wet!” Gert yelled as she strolled casually after them. Karolina shot her a face and flicked water in her direction. Gert shook her head.

Nico shivered beside her. Gert wondered how she survived winters at home—she had nothing to protect her except skin and bones. Gert felt an unwanted twinge of jealousy.

“Hey!” Gert heard Chase spluttering. “This isn’t fair!”

“Girl power!” Molly said, and drop kicked him into the surf again. Honestly, her form was impressive. Chase never stood a chance, poor guy. At least Karolina wasn’t that strong or particularly good at self defense, so they’d been more evenly matched. Molly just sent Chase sprawling into the water, and Karolina stood nearby, dumbfounded, glowing a little.

“So… have you talked about it?” Nico asked, and it took Gert a second to register that she was talking to her.

“What?”

“You disappeared on us for… half an hour? And you came back still putting your clothes back on. And _then_ ,” Nico continued, agonizingly, but Gert stayed silent, “Chase told me he really liked you, and then I told _you_ that. So. Have you talked about it?”

Gert flushed cherry red. “No. It was… one time.”

“Mhmm,” Nico said, pulling her ratty hoodie tighter around her body, and Gert just recognized it as her own.

“Hey—hey, that’s mine?”

“Is it?” Nico mused out loud, dryly. “I thought we were living in a commune.”

Gert pressed her lips together, annoyed, to say the least.

The shrieking from Molly and Chase grew louder, and they blustered past Gert and Nico all of a sudden. Karolina followed them a little more slowly, red-faced.

“We’re heading back to the van,” she said to Gert, dodging eye contact with Nico. “Just gonna grab some stuff. Chase wants to do marshmallows tonight.”

Karolina vanished up the path, after Chase and Molly, and Gert raised a brow at Nico.

“Why’s she mad at you?”

Nico pursed her lips. “We’re fine.”

“Not what I asked, but we can go with this.”

“We’re _fine_ ,” Nico snapped. “Why haven’t you asked Chase out yet?”

“It’s none of your _business_ ,” Gert spluttered. “Who I like doesn’t have _anything_ to do with you, and even if it _did_ , it’s not like I’d be asking you out when everything’s fine with your girlfriend!”

Nico opened and closed her mouth a few times, angrily. “I’m trying to _help_ you!”

“You’re getting in the way!”

“Of _what_ ? You’ve already seen his dick! How can you think he _doesn’t_ like you?”

“Flings happen, Nico!”

“That’s not a fling! That’s catching feelings and then _sleeping_ with the guy because _that’ll_ make them go away!”

“How would _you_ know?” Gert couldn’t stop herself from spitting fire and coals at Nico, getting more and more worked up by the second. “You’re in the middle of an argument with your girlfriend that you won’t even talk about!”

“She’s not—”

“Forgive me, _fiancée_.” It was a little bit too far, but Gert was knee deep in it now, and she wasn’t backing down.

“I don’t know—”

“Did you know religious girls tend to be the most sexually explorative?” Nico tried to interrupt Gert, but she bulldozed on, carried by the weight of her own momentum. “Sorry you didn’t have any toys last night.”

“At least I didn’t have a one night stand with the guy I’m in love with!”

Well. Shit.

“Are you telling me you didn’t have sex with Karolina?”

Something crashed behind the both of them, and Gert whirled on her feet. Chase, Karolina, and Alex were all standing within earshot, and judging by their reactions, heard every bit. The crash seemed to come from the broken bottle of alcohol one of them had dropped. Glass covered the rocks.

“Where did you even get alcohol?” Gert demanded, hoping she could distract them from both bombshells that were just dropped.

“I—” Karolina blinked a few times. “I got it from the last gas station.”

“We just got it from the van, “ Chase added, but all three of them still looked shocked. Gert prayed that Molly was still somewhere else, doing something else. She’d wander in and then all of them would have to explain. She didn’t know who she pitied more at the moment—Alex, Nico, or herself. Judging by Chase’s shell-shocked face, probably herself.

“Alex, I—”

“Save it, Nico. It’s none of my business, right? Glad to know that you were busy getting it on with your girlfriend while the rest of us wondered if you were even alive.” Alex’s words oozed venom. Gert flinched at them—she couldn’t imagine how Nico felt.

Alex stormed off. Karolina remained frozen. Nico ran after Alex, and then it was just the three of them.

“Nico and I didn’t have sex,” Karolina said just as Molly appeared behind her.

“LALALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING,” she said loudly, enough to make Karolina jump a foot into the air.

“Careful!" Gert hissed, hyper aware of the broken glass on the rocks. "We can’t deal with any injuries.”

Karolina stepped back tentatively. Gert eyed her bare feet.

“I’m gonna go find Old Lace,” Molly announced, clearly tasting the tension in the air. Gert wished she wouldn’t leave.

“I’ll come with you!” Karolina added too quickly. She gave Gert an apologetic look and the two of them disappeared up the path. Well, shit. Now she was alone with the physical embodiment of her repressed feelings.

“So…” Chase seemed to avoid eye contact just as much as she was. Gert took a steeling breath and squashed the tiny bubble of hope in her chest. _Forcefully._

“Nico doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Gert shoved her hands into her pockets to keep them from twitching. She knew what she was doing—protecting herself. This was not the time nor place to be falling for someone, especially someone that didn’t love her back. Because he was into Karolina. Smart, pretty, tall Karolina who was everything Gert wasn’t and she _hated_ herself for being jealous. Sure, she’d kissed her when they were in middle school (and somehow, Karolina only _just_ realized she was a lesbian, like come _on_ ), but Chase was absolutely head over heels for her and Gert would never be able to compete. He had sex with her because she was a rebound. That’s all it was.

 _A rebound_ , she thought bitterly.

“Okay,” Chase said. He smiled at her. Gert imagined some sort of want in his eyes. She hated herself for it. “Well, hopefully Nico and Karolina will sort their shit out.”

“What?” Gert blinked at him.

“They’re not bad together,” he said, scratching his neck. He always scrunched his nose when he did that.

“Oh, since when have you been paying attention?”

Chase shrugged. Gert’s stomach dropped. _Of course_ he would be paying attention, if he was in love with Karolina.

“Are you upset?” She asked, tentative, uncertain, _hopeful_ despite everything.

“No.” Chase gave his head a definitive shake. It was so hard not to watch his hair bounce when he did that. “No, I’m not.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck again. She had always figured it was a nervous habit. “I don’t think I ever really—I don’t think I ever… liked her, like that.” _Oh._ “I think she was… a distraction.”

“A distraction?” Gert echoed, feeling a little dizzy.

“Yeah.”

Gert took a step sideways, needing to steady herself. She cleared her throat. “What from?”

Chase shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away. “It… it doesn’t matter.”

Gert bit her lip. She wondered if he was secretly into Nico. The thought felt absurd to her, but she couldn’t quite push it out of her head.

She wanted to kiss him again. Badly. This impulse was much harder to squash down, and Gert found herself seriously debating it for a moment before Chase smiled at her and— _yeah she’s gonna do it_ —said, “I’m gonna find Molly.”

 _Oh._ “Okay,” she said, trying not to think about how his footsteps on the rocks sounded like the walls she built around herself starting to crumble.

The gulls cawed overhead. The weather was perfect; the waves crashed on the shore behind Gert, gently lapping at the pristine white sand. And she was miserable.

 

Nico and Alex were _not_ speaking. For real this time. They wouldn’t look at each other.

Karolina seemed to _really_ not want to choose a side in this argument (or she felt _really_ guilty, or she was still mad about whatever they were fighting about before), because she sat with an equal amount of distance between her and each of them.

Molly and Gert had built a fire on the beach. It was lovely, if a little smokey. Chase had helped once he saw Molly just piling the wood, and taught them how to position it in a teepee shape. Gert had asked how he knew how to do that. He’d shrugged.

“My dad put me in Cub Scouts for a few years.”

Right.

So presently, Chase and Molly poked stolen marshmallows into the fire on relatively clean sticks they’d found washed up on the beach. Nico ate the ones Chase burned. Alex ate the ones Molly undercooked. Gert and Karolina ate the ones they were given. The air felt thick and tight.

“You know what I’d kill for right now?” Gert asked tentatively, hoping to break the silence. No response from anyone. “A guitar.”

Nobody even acknowledged her, except for a pitying, agreeing noise from Karolina. Gert appreciated the effort.

“I’m sick of this,” Molly said, and threw her stick on the ground. Gert made an involuntary whining sound at the sight of it. “What _happened_?”

“Nothing,” the rest of them said at the same time. Molly’s hands flexed.

Gert sighed. “Molls, we—”

“No!” Molly pointed at Alex. “You, talk.”

“Molly, these are older kid problems—”

“You know, Alex, I’m _real_ sick of that. You all treat me like I’m some _kid_ who can’t handle the truth—well, guess what? I’m stuck here with the rest of you!” Gert bit her lip, feeling ashamed. Molly shouldn’t have to parent them like this. “So if your problem is that somebody had sex with someone else and you’re mad about it, then die mad. Stop being petty for no reason because we’re all gonna _die_ if you don’t.”

“You’re right, Molly.” Chase didn’t notice his marshmallow was on fire. “I’m sorry.”

Molly sat back down. Of course, her lecture wasn’t going to fix anything overnight, but it did give them all something to keep in mind—that they needed each other now, and their pettiness was a luxury they couldn’t afford.

All of them snapped to attention at the sound of sirens.

 

Gert made _sure_ Old Lace was in the van before they all roared off. Gert winced at the thought of their beachside fire, smoldering and unattended. Chase threw sand on it and Karolina tried to shoot her powers at it (it was worth a shot), but they simply ran out of time. They’d had to leave or they’d all get caught. Besides, maybe the police would find it and put it out. She doubted it. Pigs.

Gert curled up between Molly and Old Lace. Alex drove, his knuckles white on the wheel. Chase rode shotgun, checking over his shoulder every minute or so for police. Karolina and Nico sat across from Gert and Molly, a few feet apart. Not looking at each other. Gert felt a pang of guilt for opening her fat mouth and probably spoiling the one good thing Nico had.

 _Plenty of blame to share_ , she thought, remembering Alex storming off. Remembering the awkward conversation she’d had with Chase.

“It... doesn't matter.” What didn’t?

Alex pulled the van off the road. Gert wondered if he’d seen something or if he was just driving blindly through the trees at three in the morning. She wondered if he’d fallen asleep and they were all going to die.

The van sputtered to silence. Gert heard Alex open his driver’s side door, and Chase did the same. They threw open the back.

“So. They found us again.” Alex looked like he’d been crying.

Molly curled protectively around Gert. Karolina bit her lip. Nico stared at the ground—she was probably exhausted.

“I don’t—what do we even have?” Gert asked. She saw Chase hesitate.

“Old Lace.” He didn’t make eye contact with her. It was a good thing too, because feelings or not she would have killed him with the searing glare she gave him. She pretended he died anyways.

“ _No._ ”

“Gert, it’s—”

“Stuff it, Alex!” Gert knew she was being irrational, but she couldn’t stop herself. Old Lace had done nothing wrong and they wanted to get rid of her. _Again_.

“Gert—”

“My anxiety is only bearable because of _her_. Every day I wake up and I can’t stop myself from wondering if I’m going to keep breathing. I—”

Molly brushed her arm before Gert completely spiraled. She hated herself for the way she broke down in Molly’s arms, crying her eyes out—snot and all. The rest of them gave her the dignity of not saying anything.

After she calmed down, Molly stroked her hair and said, “You know they’re right.”

“Yeah,” Gert sniffled. She did.

 

* * *

 

Over the next few days, the police found them almost every night. There were a few times Chase had managed to get a few hours of sleep in first, but for the most part? Running.

He hated driving the van with all of them in it. He hated the fact that every night, they each had to rack their brains for anything that might have a tracker in it (Chase had dumped the x-ray goggles out of his bag days ago; Alex dumped the gun). They were running out of shit to throw away.

Gert sat in the seat beside him, playing some song he didn’t recognize. She sang along to it quietly, staring out the windshield and _not_ looking at him. He tried not to think about her, tried not to think about her lips, her body, her voice, or anything else about her.

He was not thinking about her, not even a little.

He drummed his hands on the wheel nervously.

 

_Would you lie for me?_

_Cross your sorry heart and hope to die for me?_

 

“Halsey!” He said, suddenly recognizing the song. “Trouble?”

“Yeah,” Gert said, quirking her lips. He loved seeing that. She smiled so rarely since they’d left Old Lace, and her smiles had already been infrequent to begin with.

He turned it up a little so that he could hear it, but more importantly, giving her an excuse to sing louder. They sang the next few songs together, neither looking at the other. Chase sputtered to a halt when it came to a song he genuinely didn’t recognize. Gert bit her lip like she was holding in a laugh when he looked to her for help, which was really, _really_ cute. She sang the words.

 

_Follow me into the water_

_And I will be there at your call_

_And I knew a love as I first saw her_

_And now I could never let you fall_

 

_So we lay there in wonder_

_And our backs to the ground and our eyes to the sky_

_And as we lay we watch the time, it passed us like a blur_

_And you were mine, there's no how or why_

 

_We went down by the seaside, to where I'd asked you to be mine_

_My one and only girl_

_A night where we brought in the tide_

_As you joined this roller coaster ride_

_And you became my world_

_In that Summer's la-la-love_

_In that Summer's la-la-love_

 

Chase tightened his grip on the wheel as Gert sang about love on a beach, a romance, a love story of the ages. When the song ended, Gert didn’t choose another one. They sat in silence for a moment.

“It’s one of my favorite songs,” she said after a moment.

“I can see why.” Did Gert blush? “It’s pretty.”

“Well, yeah. But it’s so—idealistic? It’s about a perfect romance and that’s _totally_ unattainable but like…”

“You want that,” Chase finished for her. They made eye contact for a second. Chase remembered he was driving.

“Yeah.” Gert said. She chose another song.

He was thinking about her.

 

When the police raided their campsite for the fifth night in a row, there was nobody awake enough Chase trusted to drive. Every one of them looked exhausted, hungry, and bordering desperate. Chase knew that something had to be done. He wondered if the others did too.

Alex sat in the front seat with him this time. Not many of them were comfortable messing with Gert’s music without her (and truth be told, they were glad for it), so they rode in silence. Chase tried to recall how long he’d been driving. He knew the number was in the double digits, at least. Beyond that, everything blurred.

“We have to do something about this,” he said. Alex looked at him.

“What are we gonna do? Fight the police?”

Chase tapped the wheel with his thumb. “No, of course not. But do you know who’s paying off the police?”

“Our parents,” Karolina chimed in. She sounded groggy, and through the mirror, Chase could see her hair was tangled to hell, and she, too, looked sleep deprived.

“We can’t touch them.” Alex’s tone sounded frustrated. How many times had they had this conversation? Chase couldn’t remember that either. He was so, so _tired_.

“No, we can’t.” Chase conceded.

“The whole reason we’re here is because we’re the only ones who can stop them.” That was Gert. She should be asleep.

“Great point, Gert. But we can’t stop them out of a van in the fuck middle of nowhere.” Nico. Was everyone participating in this conversation?

“Using the word fuck there doesn’t even make sense,” Gert huffed. “But whatever.”

Nico made a face. Karolina cleared her throat.

“We can’t just do nothing.”

“My parents _died_ for this.” Molly sat up from where she’d been lying next to Gert. “Karolina’s right. We have to do something.”

“All very valid points! But we still can’t do anything right now!” Alex slapped his hand on the dash and Chase winced.

“Well, we can’t do anything out here at least,” Gert grumbled. “But we can go back to L.A.”

“That’s suicide,” Chase said. “We’d get jumped as soon as we breathed anywhere near there.”

“We’re getting jumped _now_ ,” Karolina pointed out. “Besides, if we’re close to home, maybe we can figure out how our parents are tracking us.”

“That’s a big _if_ ,” Alex said flatly. “I don’t want to take a risk like that.”

“It’s also the only _if_ we have,” Nico said. “Or we can just keep driving around forever. That works too.”

A grim silence filled the car as Chase realized Nico was right. They couldn’t keep driving around forever. Alex rubbed his forehead.

“Do we have any other ideas?”

“Kill the police?” Gert offered.

Silence followed.

“Just saying. I’m down for that anyways if you guys change your minds.”

Alex grimaced.

“I guess we’re taking the next exit to L.A.”


	2. blackbird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from there's a ghost / fleurie)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> early update because today (august 26th) is my birthday!! so my present to myself is not having to do this tomorrow lol

Chase’s fingers twiddled on the wheel as he pulled into the clearing that they had vacated almost two weeks ago—the one up on the hill that gave them a perfectly useless view of a neighborhood. 

Gert shrieked from the backseat and it didn’t take Chase very long to see why; Old Lace bounded up to the van and made some sort of roar.

“Keep her quiet!” Alex hissed, but Gert didn’t hear him at all because she’d already thrown open the back and jumped out to hug her best friend. Chase sighed and put the van in park.

The others got out more slowly, stretching their legs and placing tentative weight on the ground. Chase tossed the keys to Alex, and they smacked him in the face. 

“Nice, Wilder.”

Alex mumbled something in response that Chase didn’t catch. Nico hopped out of the van beside both of them and said nothing, but half jogged to catch up to Karolina, who had gone ahead to pet Old Lace. Chase watched Alex watch Nico.

“You know you’re gonna have to talk to her eventually,” he said. Alex frowned.

“I did. She wouldn’t listen.”

“Did you try listening to  _ her? _ ” Chase didn’t know what had happened between Alex and Nico, but he was sure Nico at least had a side of the story that wasn’t ‘I cheated for no reason.’ Alex shook his head.

“You don’t understand.”

“Then make me.”

Alex looked after Nico again. “Not my secret to tell,” he said. Chase frowned. 

“Sure it is.”

“I…” Alex looked away from him. “I kept a secret from her, and she didn’t talk to me, and then she went and had sex with  _ Karolina  _ because she was  _ mad  _ at me, which is really shitty, and I can’t believe Karolina would do that and—and I don’t know how to fix it. Any of it. Nico hates me now, and maybe I deserve it.”

Chase felt like he’d been dipped in ice water and left on the rocks somewhere. The processing of everything Alex told him felt slow and sluggish. “Okay.” He scrambled around in his brain for anything else to say. Alex’s anguished energy permeated the air; it was screwing with Chase’s words. 

Alex began to brush past Chase and he felt a flash of panic—if Chase didn’t intervene in this, it was going to keep brewing and brewing until Alex wound up dead somewhere because Chase had absolutely no doubt Nico could and would kill him. He grabbed Alex’s arm.

When Alex turned to look at him—angry, upset, frustrated, hurt, uncertain—Chase said, “Nico is her own person. She makes her own choices, and she didn’t choose you. And that’s… frustrating.” He winced, thinking about how stupid he was to not notice Karolina not being into him  _ at all _ , and his brief hurt when she rejected him. He thought of the  _ real  _ hurt he felt at Gert telling him their sex was a one night stand; but of course, Alex wouldn’t know a thing about that. “It hurts. A lot. And it hurts even more because you can’t distance yourself from her,” Chase closed his eyes to remind himself that he was talking about Alex and Nico, not Gert.  _ Not Gert _ . “But we all need each other right now. Anger—anger is a luxury we don’t have. And I get it—I get that you want to be hurt, but we  _ can’t  _ afford that. Not when we’re all watching each others backs to stay alive.” He released Alex’s arm.

Alex shrugged away Chase’s hand and stormed off. Chase could only hope some of his words sank in. If not… Chase shuddered to think of what might happen to them. He put his hands in his sweatshirt kangaroo pocket and walked off to find Gert.

Nico, Molly, and Gert patted Old Lace in a circle when Chase approached. Chase wondered vaguely where Karolina went but, considering how antsy she had been around Nico lately, he couldn’t blame her for finding somewhere else to be. 

“Hey,” he said, feeling somewhat awkward and still absolutely terrified of Old Lace. She was a dinosaur, for God’s sake, and Gert just petted her like she was his nana’s tiny Maltese, Charlie. Old Lace snorted when Chase approached. Gert shook her head at him, as if to say  _ do not touch _ . He was okay with that.

Gert stood. 

“I don’t want to think about the last time I wore clean underwear—” 

Nico choked loudly. “What a way to start off.”

“—so I’m voting we hit a thrift store again, and get some spare clothes.” Gert shot Nico the dirtiest glare he had ever seen from her. Well, except the ones she gave him sometimes. 

“You want us to get  _ used  _ underwear?” Molly scrunched up her nose.

“Of  _ course  _ not, vaginal discharge is acidic enough to bleach—” Chase blinked  _ really  _ hard. Gert seemed to watch him screw his eyes shut, because she sighed mid-sentence and continued, “We can get new underwear from Wal-Mart or something. But we  _ should  _ have spare clothes around so that we can actually clean them without being naked.”

“Makes sense,” Nico said. “I’ll go.”

Chase squinted at her. “Why?”

“Nobody else knows what size everyone here is. Also, I get to pick out my own clothes.”

“You—everyone’s sizes?” Chase spluttered. 

Nico nodded in a self satisfied way.

“She’s a nosy bitch,” Gert said, swatting Nico. Nico made a pouty expression. “But it is handy right now,” Gert conceded. Nico stuck her tongue out at Gert.

“Didn’t your mom ever tell you your face will freeze that way?” Molly asked, shoving Nico.

“Hey, do that again and you might break her arm,” Gert warned. Molly pouted. “I’m going to the thrift store with Nico.”

“And that dinosaur?” Chase raised a brow.

“Her  _ name  _ is Old Lace.”

“Sorry. Why don’t you stay here with Old Lace, and I’ll go to the thrift store with Nico.”

Gert squinted suspiciously, and—was that jealousy?

Whatever expression she made, it disappeared a moment later. 

“Fine. Don’t take more than you can carry.”

 

Chase and Nico peeked around the thrift store; although he was fairly certain they were unrecognizable, with Nico wearing no makeup—and honest to God looking like a completely different person—and him with unshaved scruff and a baseball hat? They were masters of disguise. 

Nico really did have everyone’s sizes memorized and Chase found himself a little bit scared. The fact that she could probably look at something once and have it in her brain forever unsettled him. He felt glad she was Karolina’s problem. 

“Think this’ll fit Gert?” Nico held up an olive green bra, sized 40D. She made a face at it and put it back. He closed his eyes.

“Hey, perv,” she said. “You saw her tits. This one?”

Chase braced himself for whatever Nico was holding up. He peeked at it. She held the most garish, fuck ugly bra he had  _ ever _ seen (which wasn’t saying that much), covered in hot pink polka dots and colored a rusty orange. He inhaled deeply and Nico shrieked a laugh. It took him a second to process that she hadn’t been serious in the slightest. He wanted to slap her.

“For real, I like this one,” she said, plucking out a dark brown one. Chase looked away from it. He knew Nico was taking that in and weaponizing it, but he couldn’t have cared less. 

“I actually don’t know Molly’s,” Nico said, making a face. 

“Can I go look for pants or something?” Chase tried to hide the note of desperation in his voice. 

“Hmm? Oh, no. We can’t split up.” Nico held out her hands and closed an eye, internally measuring. “Probably a 38?” She mumbled.

“Hey, so…” Chase remembered his conversation with Alex all of a sudden, remembered Nico’s angry, teary reaction to Alex’s rage. “I talked to Alex earlier.”

Nico tensed. She didn’t change, other than that, didn’t break out yelling or anything. He saw her jaw muscles twitch, but honestly, if he didn’t  _ know  _ Nico, he wouldn’t have been able to see her take a step cautiously back from the conversation in her mind.

“And?” She asked, her voice casual as she picked up a pink and green striped sports bra. 

“He… thinks you had sex with Karolina to get back at him.”

Nico frowned angrily. She placed the bra back on the rack and sighed.

“He doesn’t believe me when I say we didn’t,” she said, selecting a dark purple bra and nodding. 

Chase could believe they didn’t, honestly. They had been soaking wet and shivering when they’d bumped into Chase and the others, and unless they’d actually had sex in the pool (which was Not Good in a LOT of ways), he figured they'd just fallen into the pool and come back. 

“Alex—”

“Won’t listen to me,” she snapped, throwing a bra with tiny watermelons on it into the cart. “I tried. He’s so stuck up, and stubborn, and  _ so  _ self-righteous, and—”

“Yeah,” Chase agreed, watching her as she pushed the cart further down the aisle and grabbed something black and lacy. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on, really, I just—I don’t want to get… involved…” Chase hesitated at the nasty look Nico shot him, placing whatever thing she’d just grabbed back on the rack. “I just… we have to depend on each other, now, and I don’t want us to become… fractured.” Nico picked up something else and nodded at it. She stuck it in the basket and ignored what he’d said.

“Pants,” she said, and they began making their way to the pants section.

“We need to get you one of these,” Chase remarked, pointing towards the pole that stuck out of the top of the cart so you didn’t lose it in the aisles. Nico stomped on his foot.  _ That’s fair _ , he thought, biting his lip from the sharp pain. 

He thought she might’ve dropped the Alex discussion when she said, “Alex doesn’t need to know my business.”

“That’s what I told him,” Chase said as Nico frowned at a pair of white shorts. “But he’s hurt—he’s not really thinking clearly right now.”

“And I didn’t  _ cheat _ ,” Nico hissed, throwing a pair of cropped jeans into the cart, barely glancing at the size. “Alex and I were never even dating—and even if we were,” she continued pointedly, clearly noticing Chase’s doubt written all over his face, “Whatever we had was over way before Karolina kissed me. And—” Nico removed a pair of yellow shorts from the rack, made a face, and put them back. She continued in a much, much quieter voice: “Me and Karolina are complicated right now.”

“She kissed you?" Chase couldn’t stop the surprise in his voice. He chose to ignore the second thing she said—things were always complicated with Nico, and he had no doubt she’d sort it out without his help. The small smile Nico suppressed didn’t escape his notice. 

“The first time.” She held out a pair of khakis and gave Chase a questioning look. ”These for you?”

“That’s a no," Chase said, shaking his head. “The first time?”

“Well, yeah, the next three or four were all me.” Nico hung the khakis back up. “You know how lesbians are.”

“Isn’t that homophobic?” He asked cautiously, knowing exactly how much Gert would lecture him if he ever said anything like that. 

“No," Nico said, shrugging. "It’s just true—she never would’ve kissed me again if I didn’t. You know—that kind of over-cautious approach to dating that only lesbians have because of the predatory lesbian stereotype.” While she talked, she placed two more pairs of shorts into the cart. 

“That’s a thing?" 

“The predatory lesbian thing? Yeah.”

“Huh.” Chase never thought about how he might feel if he’d been terrified to pursue someone (except Gert—but that was probably different). He wondered how Karolina could stand living knowing any girl she chose to pursue could not only not like her back, but be violent and hateful. He supposed it wasn’t like she chose to live like that. 

“Ask Karolina about it,” Nico said, probably reading his thoughts like the witch she was. "Not like I have firsthand experience or anything.”

Right, because Nico wasn’t a lesbian. “That’s called bi, right?" 

“Hmm?" Nico held up yet another pair of jeans, and Chase didn’t actually hate them, so he nodded. 

“Liking guys and girls."

“Don’t let Gert hear you say that," Nico scoffed, and did an honestly spot on impression of her, “'That’s a heterosexual’s definition of bisexuality.’” She mused over a rack for a moment before picking out a pair of black joggers. 

“But—”

“Basically, yes. Bisexuality is liking two or more genders.”

“Or more?” Chase found himself hating this conversation more and more. Nico smiled at him and she definitely had some element of pity. 

“Or more. But anyways, I don’t actually know if I’m bi.” Nico began steering them towards shirts, and Chase tagged along behind (as if he had another choice). 

Chase frowned. He wanted to ask Nico more, but he felt nervous asking more about her sexuality for fear of getting his head bitten off. Getting Nico to talk about anything personal had always been an ordeal—Nico just wasn't that kind of oversharer. Bisexuality, though—Chase felt some sort of resonance with the idea, and he filed it away in his brain for later. 

“Oh my God, I’m getting this for Karolina,” Nico said loudly. Chase peered over her shoulder to see what she had, and he had to stop himself from dropping his jaw on the floor. She held a novelty cotton V neck printed with a pattern of wine bottles, and it said in large, bubblegum pink, curly letters: I’m Too Drunk To Act Straight. 

“ _ Yes _ ," Chase agreed emphatically. Nico put it in the cart and they shopped for the next few minutes in silence until Nico held up a grey cotton boat necked shirt with a black elephant design and said, “Gert?" 

“Sure,” Chase replied. 

“And a blue flannel.” Nico smacked her lips. Chase nodded. They finished shopping after Nico selected something black for herself, and Chase paid without too much difficulty, although his breath caught in his chest when the cashier held up the large bill to check for counterfeit. 

“Where’s Wal-mart?” Chase asked, once they were free of the thrift store. 

“Uh, up the block, I think.” Nico looked comical with all the bags in her hands and twisted around her arms, but she’d refused help when Chase offered to carry some. So they walked up the block, jogging across intersections and Chase purposefully slowing his pace some because Nico was so goddamn short. She took two steps for every one of his.

“What—what are we getting?” Chase wiped the sweat off of his face with his shirt. The temperature felt ridiculously high, especially for a day in early September. He hoped the cooler weather would settle in soon.

“A razor, mostly. You look thirty-five.” Nico poked him. “Although tampons seem like a good idea. I think Gert was complaining about cramps.”

Chase blinked. Of course he knew what periods were, he just never liked thinking about them too much. His respect for people with uteruses grew increasingly every time they were mentioned to him.

“Do we need… anything else for that?”

Nico bit her lip. “I don’t know.  _ I  _ never have bad cramps but… yeah we should get some Advil too. I know Molly had a tough time last time.”

“Don’t we need I.D. to get medications?”

“Maybe?” They finally approached the Wal-Mart doors and Nico relieved herself of the bags immediately, throwing them into the first cart they found. Chase pushed it towards the entrance and sighed at the one wheel that absolutely did not like listening to the other three. They wandered around, searching for the pharmacy section, and when they found it, Nico threw in a double pack of Advil.

“Check,” Chase said. “What’s next?”

“Um,” Nico scrunched up her nose. “Soap.”

Chase couldn’t have agreed more, so they got soap. And razors. And underwear. And Bandaids. And lip balm. And about a hundred other things Chase hadn’t even thought of, but Nico just kept piling shit in the cart. 

When they were finally ready to check out, Chase almost cried with relief when he saw the self checkout. Nico scanned everything, and, just as Chase inserted the cash (two hundred dollars!!! He was going to kill Nico), Nico nudged his arm and, when he looked at her questioningly, nodded to his left.

“Don’t be obvious,” she said, but it was too late. Chase had already whirled around, and who he saw turned his stomach icy cold. 

“Is that Dr. Bernie from Chemistry?” He asked, panicking. Nico nodded, biting her lip. 

“We need to go,” she said. “Now.  _ Not obviously, _ ” she added, because Chase was clearly shaking. They took their time, every second agonizing Chase, knowing they could be recognized any moment, bagging things and collecting change. Chase almost cried out of relief when they finally finished, knowing, praying, for just a little bit longer. 

“Hey, aren’t you Nico Minoru?” Chase heard a familiar voice say, and he made eye contact with Nico. 

_ Run,  _ her eyes said. They sprinted for the doors with their cart in tow.  They didn’t stop for anything, not the security people shooting them odd looks, not the other customers walking through the entrance, especially not Dr. Bernie shouting after them. They ran and ran and ran, Chase cursing the fact that they left the van behind, insisting that they wouldn’t need it. 

“Here,” Nico gasped, and she ducked them into a side alley behind a dumpster. Chase had no choice but to follow. Nico stopped once she hid the cart, doubled over and wheezing. Chase felt a wave of embarrassment when he remembered how short Nico was. They stood still for a minute, together, breathing heavily, sweating like pigs. Nico nodded after a long moment.

“I’m—I’m okay.”

They slowly picked their way back to the campsite.

 

* * *

 

“I’m gonna go take a bath or something,” Karolina grumbled, brushing past Gert and Old Lace.

“Stay safe,” Gert said, but Karolina barely heard her. She was in her own head, stewing— _ stewing _ probably wasn’t the best word for how she felt, but it was the most accurate. 

Karolina felt restless without anything to do for the first time in… weeks. Nico and Chase were in town, Gert and Molly were cutting up and playing games with Old Lace, and Alex was off brooding somewhere. He’d been doing that ever since Gert basically said Karolina had had sex with Nico, and they (they meaning Chase, Karolina herself, and Alex) had overheard. She winced, remembering the way Nico had run after Alex with a kind of desperation that Karolina  _ couldn’t  _ stop herself from envying. Lord knows she’d tried. 

She found herself wandering deeper into the woods, poring over her own thoughts. She knew she should be paying attention to where she was going, but it was difficult to stay focused on her feet when she began thinking about Nico—it always had been. Ever since they’d met, ever since they were kids, Nico had been different. Nico was special, and Karolina had always fallen over herself to get her attention. Nico had reciprocated in kind, for the most part. Karolina mostly felt like she’d cared more about Nico than Nico had cared about her, but it hadn’t usually bothered her. She had always cared more about making friends than the other kids had. 

And then she and Gert kissed in sixth grade, because they’d been playing truth or dare, and Alex  had dared Gert to kiss Karolina (and then shrieked because he’d meant “on the cheek”), and something shifted inside of Karolina. Not anything she couldn’t box away for later, but something. Enough to make her quiet whenever Gert and Nico talked about their guy crushes, enough to make her proclaim she was  _ never  _ going to get married ever, enough to make her push down the feeling that she was wrong, wrong,  _ wrong _ . 

And then there were the girls at the party. The girls grinding on each other, making out, and that little thing that had shifted in her so long ago creaked again, and Karolina finally realized what it was with a small  _ oh _ . 

Ever since then, she’d known that she’d fallen for Nico Minoru a long,  _ long  _ time ago, but never had a name for it. She spent nights lying awake, wondering how long she’d been like this, wondering how she’d never known, wondering, wondering, wondering. Wondering if Nico could possibly feel the same way. Dismissed it because Gert and Nico liked dudes, and Karolina most certainly did not. If she was sure of anything, anymore, it was that she’d never kiss a man, never think about them romantically, never be with one. 

And then Alex and Nico got together, and her whole world was crushed. Whatever small, blooming thing that she held so fiercely to herself, terrified that if she spoke it aloud it would disappear, was stomped on and extinguished. And Karolina cried. She cried when she stumbled on Nico and Alex making out, tried to hide the pain from Nico because it wasn’t Nico’s fault—she should have known better than to harbor anything for a straight girl. But then, she’d kissed Nico because she was terrified to die without ever having told Nico, terrified of never getting to say anything, terrified that the little blossom in her chest would die alongside her, without ever giving it a chance to grow because she’d guarded it too cautiously—and Nico had kissed back. And then Nico had kissed her again. And again.

And then Nico had run after Alex. 

So now, standing in a river Karolina didn’t remember wading into, she didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know how to feel.  

Karolina knew she was in love with Nico. She didn’t know when she realized it—before their first kiss, or during it, or their second kiss, or their third—but she knew, in her bones. Something had always been different about Nico.

But there was Alex, who probably wasn’t interested in what Karolina had to say. She hadn’t tried, too afraid of what she would hear.  _ Predatory. Taking advantage of your friends. Back off.  _ Everything she imagined stung her, and she probably deserved all of that. She’d kissed Nico without asking, knowing Alex was still in the picture, and taken advantage of her. If Nico had rejected her, Karolina probably couldn’t have blamed her. 

_ Predatory _ .

She didn’t know if she believed her own head, or Nico’s tongue sliding against hers next to the pool that night, Nico’s impossibly soft lips, the feeling of  _ rightness _ she’d felt when Nico kissed her back that first time. That feeling had sent Karolina over the moon—it was the first time in a long, long time that something fit exactly the way it was supposed to. 

She glowed—literally—with the memory. Karolina wanted to live in Nico’s lips forever, wanted to never stop kissing her, never stop telling her how  _ much  _ she meant to her. Karolina knew she was glittering colors again, but she couldn’t care, Nico just felt so  _ right _ ; like she was her other half. 

So how did she reconcile that with Alex?

How did she reconcile that with Nico’s hesitation, Nico saying she and Alex were over but still rejecting her? Nico promising that she never even really felt for Alex, but still not answering when Karolina asked what they were? Nico kissing her and kissing her but never speaking about her out loud to anyone else, Nico  _ promising  _ she was important but leaving her alone at the very instant Alex might be upset?

If Alex wasn’t the problem, was she?

Karolina heard splashing downstream, somehow, through her eight layers of brooding. She looked up, startled.

_ Speak of the devil and he shall appear _ , she thought.

 

* * *

 

Alex couldn’t get out of his own head. 

He knew his thoughts were venomous, that stewing by himself was the  _ worst  _ option, that brooding would only make him angrier—but he couldn’t stop himself, not when Nico held herself like a wounded dog in his presence, when Karolina wouldn’t even make eye contact with him, when Chase thought it was his place to rebuke him even though he didn’t know the first thing about their situation.

So Alex nursed his wounds by himself, his bare feet dragging in a creek, his thoughts tumultuous and his eyes wet with tears. He hadn’t seen Karolina in hours. He hadn’t seen Nico since that morning. If he was honest, he hadn’t seen anyone all day. Nice to know they cared enough to be falling over themselves looking for him.

He still couldn’t believe Nico had cheated, that she’d gone and had sex with Karolina just to prove a  _ point _ . He thought of how Karolina had frozen up next to him when Gert had spilled that information, and how he knew it in his bones to be true. Karolina and Nico had snuck off that night to bang in the hotel pool (which was  _ gross _ —that’s a public pool!), and the rest of them were left to panic when the police showed up and two members of their group were  _ missing _ .

He told himself not to think about it at the time, but what else was he supposed to think about? The fact that they were mere miles from their evil parents? Or the fact that if that evil glowing man found them again, they’d all die? 

He brooded so deeply he didn’t see the glowing until it was almost too late—Karolina splashed in the water upstream, doing  _ something _ , and Alex could walk away right now. He didn’t have to look at her, knowing what she did, didn’t have to play nice and make up. He moved to stand up—but shit, Karolina looked up at him. They stared at each other for a moment, like two deer in the headlights.

“Hi,” she said, in that small voice she always had around him, lately.

“Hello there.”

“I was just—I was—” He could almost see the gears turning in her head as she scrambled for some reason that he was sure she had; with the way she’d been avoiding him, he severely doubted she would have wandered up here if she had had any idea he was here.

“It’s okay,” he said, tired. He hated the tension, even if he knew he was right. She smiled, still tense, probably trying to act relieved.

“Are you okay?”

_ No _ . “Yeah. Yeah, I’m just thinking.”

“About what?”

“About…”  _ How you betrayed me and stole my girl and now you’re acting guilty as Hell which basically just means I’m right.  _ “A lot of things.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

He doubted that.

“Where’s Nico?”

Karolina tensed at that.

“With Chase, still.”

“And you’re not… worried?”

“Why would I be?” She wore an innocently confused frown, as if it had never even crossed her mind that Nico would be making out with Chase in a back alley somewhere.

“No reason,” he said, shrugging off her question. “Nice to know you’re not worried.”  _ I wasn’t either—I didn’t think I had to be.  _ (He’d still give anything for a second chance.)

Karolina bristled, but before she could snap some sort of retort that would’ve stung Alex worse than broken glass in his heel, Gert’s loud voice carried over the tree line. 

“—stay away!”

Karolina shot into the air like a magnificent rainbow. Alex grumbled to himself as he was left to follow her, on foot like a normal human being.

“Ow,” he said to himself as he picked his way through a thorn bush. Frustration welled in his chest that he squashed down. Karolina was probably already dealing with whatever the problem was with her badass powers that Alex didn’t have, so  _ of course  _ Nico would’ve chosen her over him, because he didn’t have anything to offer other than wanting to be friends and—

He burst through the tree line. Dale and Stacey stared back at him.

 

“What the hell are  _ you _ doing here?” Alex hissed, taking inventory. Gert stood protectively over Old Lace, Molly stood protectively in front of Gert, and Karolina just looked dumbstruck, floating a few feet above the ground and glowing. Uselessly. 

Dale had a gun—no surprise there. Stacey hovered behind her husband, nervousness etched all over her face. They both wore mixtures of relief, fear, and something else Alex couldn’t decipher.

“We—”

“We’re here to find you,” Stacey interrupted Dale, trembling slightly. “We want you to come home.”

“Bullshit!” Gert threw a rock that landed at Dale’s feet. His hand twitched.

“Sweetie, you don’t understand—”

“You left me! You left  _ us _ !” Molly’s eyes glowed. Alex hoped she wouldn’t actually thro. the van. Old Lace stirred behind Gert.

“We were protecting you!” Dale stepped forward.

“Rot in hell!”

“Now, honey—”

“Back up.” Alex clenched his fists, hating how powerless he felt. He wondered what he would be like if he  _ did  _ have powers—if he would actually do something, or if he would just stare, dumbfounded, like Karolina was doing now. “How did you find us?”

“Who?” Alex felt his stomach drop, and everyone in the clearing turned to look as Chase and Nico emerged from the other side of the hill, pushing a bag-laden cart. Nico’s jaw dropped. Chase stared at them, back and forth between Dale and Stacey, Gert, and Alex. 

Karolina and Nico made prolonged eye contact. God, could they have picked a worse time to eye fuck?

“How did you find us?” Chase demanded. Dale’s hand twitched again near the gun, and Alex tensed (even more). 

“Who sent you?” Gert asked, also keeping her eyes trained on Dale’s gun hand. 

“We—”

“No  _ lying _ ,” Nico added, pointed. “No tricks.”

“Put the gun down,” added Alex. When Dale glanced at him, taken aback, Alex glared. “If you want us to come home, then you can’t have that.”

“Dale,” Stacey said under her breath. “They don’t trust us.”

“ _ You kidnapped me _ ,” Karolina pointed out loudly. 

“We didn’t mean it!” Dale protested. Stacey gave him another  _ look _ and Dale sighed, putting the gun down on the ground, carefully.

“Now step away,” Alex said. “Now,” he added, interrupting Dale’s angry objections, and with another  _ look  _ from Stacey and some more grumbling (not to mention emphatic staring from a glowing Karolina), Dale stepped away from the gun.

“How did you find us?” Gert repeated Chase’s question.

“Would you believe ‘lucky guess?’” 

“Bullshit,” Molly growled. “The truth.”

“I can call the police  _ right now _ ,” Dale said. “Your threats—”

“You can’t call the police if you’re dead,” Nico shrugged. “You’re unarmed, and we have a dinosaur.” Stacey nodded agreement. 

“You can’t kill them!” Gert shouted. “We need answers!”

Karolina hovered uncertainly. “We can’t be like them,” she said. Alex barely heard her, with how quietly she said it. He sought her eye contact, but she wouldn’t look at him. 

“It was all of it!” Dale shrieked, edging away from Molly, who took one single step closer, hackles raised, poised like an attack dog. “It was all of it.”

“All of  _ what?”  _ Gert took a step forward, too. 

“Everything you got rid of. Old Lace, the bracelet, the goggles, the gun. We were starting to panic when our trackers kept winking out.”

“But we knew you wouldn’t get rid of one,” Dale added. Alex felt his blood turn to ice.

“Which one?” Molly clenched her fists. Karolina edged forward.

Dale clamped his mouth shut. Stacey stepped closer to him.

“Which  _ one _ ?” Chase demanded.

Alex saw the way they screwed their lips shut, saw the terror in their eyes.

“Gert. Old Lace.”

“She’s not—she’s not a  _ weapon _ ,” Gert spluttered. Alex arched a brow. Gert frowned stubbornly. 

“ _ Tell us _ ,” Nico marched up to Dale and poked him in the chest. “Tell us right now or I swear to God, I’ll cut your arm off.” Alex spied the metal edge of  _ something  _ in Nico’s other hand, and knew she meant it.

“She means it,” Alex said, but it proved unnecessary, because Nico actually brought up her knife to slash Dale’s arm open.

“ _ It’s you _ ,” Stacey screamed, lunging forward to grab Nico’s arm. Alex felt the power of the words, the desperation, the truth in them that settled in his bones, the gravity of them that settled into his throat and choked him blind. “It’s Nico.”

“Why—why would—” Gert shook her head. “Nico has nothing.”

“Not anything she has,” Dale spat bitterly. “It’s  _ her _ . The tracker is in her”

Nico took a step backwards. Karolina dropped to the ground immediately behind her. 

“Why—why would it be me?”

“It could’ve been any of us,” Chase added. “Why her?”

Dale inhaled deeply, and Stacey pressed a hand to her mouth.

“A long time ago—”

“Save it. Why now?” Molly looked considerably more uncertain, but the anger in her eyes still burned.

“He’s—you have to know the whole story.” Stacey wrang her hands. “We were approached by Tina—this was  _ many  _ years ago, and she wanted us to genetically engineer a project for her.”

“This was—right when we had just successfully cloned a gorilla. That was—”

“—the start of our career.” The couple exchanged a nervous glance. “We—”

“—Tina wanted us to clone a person.”

Alex’s brain stumbled.  _ A person? _

“That’s impossible,” he said, but he knew it to be untrue.

“We thought so too,” Stacey agreed, too quickly. “But we did it.”

“And she’s perfect,” Dale said, admiration in his tone, staring directly at Nico.

_ Staring directly at Nico _ .

Alex felt the truth suffocating him, felt the weight deepen to crush his eyes, his throat, his lungs, choking him. 

Nico was a clone.

Nico seemed to feel the same as Alex, because she stumbled backwards, directly into Karolina’s chest. Everyone else stood in stunned silence.

“You—you’re lying,” Karolina said, but Alex could hear the note of uncertainty in her voice. Could hear the knowledge of the truth that her words denied that, too, had anchored to her bones.

“Tina thought—thought that she was very valuable, and didn’t want to lose—”

“What about Amy?” Alex felt his voice crack. He wasn’t surprised.

Stacey blinked. “Amy?”

“Not us,” Dale said. “Tina was working on the Staff, at the time, and so had Amy to test and see if it would respond to her DNA.”

“It didn’t,” Stacey added, needlessly. “And Tina wasn’t going to risk engineering it to take a 50% match, and have someone who  _ happened  _ to match her be able to use it—which happens a lot in Asian communities, actually—”

“—So she came to us.” Dale finished. “Because the great Tina Minoru needed an heir to her empire.”

“...Nico?” Karolina wrapped her arms around Nico’s waist, and spoke so softly, so tenderly that Alex felt like he was intruding. Nico said nothing in response.

Gert wiped a tear from her cheek. “Get out,” she spat to her parents, with such venom that Alex was surprised Dale and Stacey didn’t disintegrate on the spot. 

“You’ll be killed.” Stacey shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re up against.”

“You need our help,” Dale added. 

“I’ll  _ die  _ before I come to you for help,” Gert snarled. “You’re  _ disgusting _ .”

Dale and Stacey looked properly admonished.

“If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you myself,” Molly flexed her hands, and Alex knew it to be true. Karolina leaned down to whisper something to Nico.

“You could’ve said no,” Chase said. “You had a choice.”

“Tina would’ve killed us!” Stacey objected. 

“Better than this,” Alex said. “Better than creating a  _ person  _ in a  _ lab _ .” 

“You don’t understand—”

“Yeah, apparently we don’t understand a lot!” He shouted, his anger about everything—about Nico, about Karolina, about Chase, about their whole situation—came spilling out of his mouth before he had a chance to think. “But killing people and creating them in labs whenever you want is  _ wrong _ ! And nobody wants to explain what we  _ ‘don’t understand,’ _ so unless you have a great excuse for  _ murder _ , we’re not having it!”

“Listen, we—”

Karolina looked up, then, and spat with the most anger he had  _ ever  _ heard from her, “Get. Out.”

Stacey choked back a sob. Dale stood firm, clearly wanting to argue, but Molly walked forward and he scurried away, down the hill with Stacey, looking back over his shoulder, wide-eyed. 

Nico sank to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Emma, Mindy, and Alessia again—tune back next monday for chapter 3! Don't forget, for updates u can follow me on twitter at @pebbleys! <3


	3. sharp objects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from sharp objects / cosy sheridan)

The voices around Nico sounded distant, like her head had been submerged underwater. In a way, it had.

She heard Karolina say, “Would you be?” She closed her eyes, soaking in Karolina’s presence through her skin. She could not break down now.

How could she not?

Nico inhaled deeply, praying the air would dispel the storm brewing on her horizon. It didn’t, of course, but she could hope.

“Hey.” Karolina’s arms around her waist tightened—Nico felt the contact as if she were watching from someone else’s eyes. Not her own. They _couldn’t_ be her own. “Hey, Nico.”

“Karolina,” Nico whispered, leaning back into Karolina’s chest.

“How are you holding up?”

Nico shook her head slightly. Karolina nodded and drew Nico into her lap, running her hands up and down Nico’s arms. She shuddered under Karolina’s touch, feeling the steadying effect of it, feeling the light circles Karolina drew on her shoulders help slowly pull her back into reality, into her own headspace again. Distantly, she grew more aware of arguing happening between other voices—two or three of them. If Nico focused, she could distinguish Alex and Gert’s voices, but the degree to which she could even tell them apart varied.

If Nico was in a better presence of mind, she might’ve turned around and buried her head into Karolina’s shoulder, breathing her in and blocking out the rest of the world. She might have clung to Karolina’s shirt, twisted her fingers into the fabric, and let tears spill, if no one else was watching but Karolina. She had that effect on Nico—like Nico could allow Karolina to see her, see her vulnerability and emotions and who she really was, underneath the walls upon walls she’d built to protect her own fragile heart that Karolina had claimed so easily, as if the walls hadn’t mattered at all.

And then Nico fucked it up by chasing after Alex again. Honestly, she wouldn’t blame Karolina if she hated her.

But for now, they needed each other, so they pretended.

Nico took another shaky breath in.

Were any of these thoughts even her own? Was she nothing but her mother’s brain, stewing in the same goop that her mother’s brain stewed in—was everything she ever thought and did and said just her parroting her mother? Was she just a whisper of some individual, foreign and unknown to Nico, so estranged from her own body because some sick Goddess wanted to make her beg, make her try to justify the air she breathed, crush her from the inside out just to show her how insignificant she was? She didn’t even notice the tears falling until Karolina squeezed her a little tighter, again, drawing Nico back in.

“Hey,” she said, moving her hands from Nico’s arms to her hair. Nico said nothing, just leaned further back into Karolina’s chest. Karolina entwined their hands, and she felt her lean over to press a kiss to the top of her head.

Gradually, the underwater feeling subsided. Nico allowed herself to open her eyes a crack. She looked down and saw Karolina’s hands in her own, saw Karolina’s legs, and she almost had to close her eyes again, her distress relating to her relationship with Karolina bubbling in her chest. _Not now_.

“—we have to do something,” Chase said, his voice clear. Huh.

“Of course we do! But—”

“We need to take a beat,” Gert interrupted Alex.

“ _How_? The whole of PRIDE knows we’re here, and probably the LAPD too!”

“What even _can_ we do?” Molly shouted.

“We came back to L.A. to stop our parents; we can’t just leave again,” Chase said. Nico screwed her eyes back shut.

“Can you tell them to be quiet?” She whispered to Karolina. Karolina rocked on her side a little, humming nonchalantly.

“They need to figure it out.”

“So _loudly_ ?” Nico knew her complaining was baseless, that Karolina was right, but _God_ she just wanted to crawl under the covers somewhere and rot to death. Or have Karolina cuddle her forever.

Did Karolina want that, though? Nico wouldn’t blame her if Karolina distanced herself—she couldn’t say she wouldn’t do the same. Nico would grow up to look like and be Tina Minoru—evil billionaire genius—and honestly, that wasn’t exactly attractive. Not to Nico, at least. Probably not to Karolina. Not many people found emotional distance and cold, sharp discipline to be.

Nico shifted uncomfortably in Karolina’s lap, aware that Karolina would probably rather be anywhere else than stuck babysitting her shell shocked self, rather be anywhere else than with Tina Junior. With the way Karolina squeezed her, she was probably just trying to make sure Nico didn’t run off to spill everything to PRIDE.

Karolina remained silent, just stroked Nico’s hair and pressed kisses to Nico’s shoulders. Each one seared her skin like a brand.

Apparently, some decision was made while Nico hadn’t been paying attention, because Chase walked past the two of them on his way to the van. Gert followed him, treading lightly and giving Nico a sympathetic glance. Molly walked over and squatted down to hug Nico.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she said. Nico felt the lie in her throat, squeezing her like Karolina’s arms around her waist, choking her. Molly patted Nico’s back a little and pulled away, biting her lip to look at Alex, who nodded. Nico hated that they were treating her like a fragile doll.

“So…” Molly rubbed Nico’s arms a little. “We’re going to have to… break back into your house.”

Nico couldn’t stop herself from laughing a little at that, despite herself, despite the ice settling into her bones at the very thought of her mother. Her house was a fortress—they thought they could just walk in. She shook her head.

“You can’t—my house is the security capital of the world.”

“That’s what Alex said.” Molly rolled her eyes. Nico’s stomach turned slightly at being compared to Alex, no matter how minor. “But he thinks it won’t be a problem if we have you.”

Nico frowned. “And nobody asked me?”

“Nico…” Karolina twiddled her fingers on Nico’s thighs—she had moved them there when Molly came over. She didn’t know what Karolina wanted, or what she was trying to say, or _anything_ —everyone was unreadable right now and Nico hated it.

“We’re gonna try and disable the tracker—if we can find where it’s hosted.”

“Did you think about her mo—Tina’s office at WIZARD?”

Molly shook her head. “We did, but… we think her hosting that sort of thing publicly is… risky.”

Right. Because _Nico_ was an under the table commission from friends, and a secret from the world. The blowback that the great Tina Minoru would face for tampering with ethics would be devastating—better to host Nico’s monitors privately. Nico shuddered to think of what else her mother might have planted in her.

“And we also want to get the Staff,” Chase added, approaching. He held a familiar shape in his hands.

“Oh, what is that?” Karolina asked. Nico stretched her hands out to receive it.

“My octopus,” Nico said, smiling a little.

“An impulse purchase,” Chase said, frowning at it. “I don’t remember what she named it.”

“Cthulhu,” Nico said, turning over the porcelain octopus in her hands. It was painted realistically enough that the glaze over the whole piece made it look fresh out of the ocean. Each tentacle curled at the end, shaped to hold small, round candles. Nico had fallen in love immediately, and purchased Cthulhu along with eight tiny, strawberry scented candles for his tiny tentacles to hold.

“Can you even light those?” Molly asked now as Chase passed the bag with them in it. They both shrugged.

“The staff, you said?” Karolina repeated. Nico stopped turning Cthulhu in her hands.

“Yeah. Alex thinks we’re gonna need it.”

“For what?”

Chase shrugged. “Whatever the next step is.”

“Stopping… Jonah,” Nico said. The glowing man who’d almost killed Karolina, kidnapped her, and left Nico alone for the second time her life. She couldn’t lie—those 24 hours were almost the worst set in her life, barely beaten by _that_ day.

Nico closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about how she’d been kissed by Karolina and then immediately had to deal with Karolina being ripped away from her. Nico didn’t want to think about the anguish and turmoil that left her in—how was she even supposed to deal with that? Being confronted by someone she didn’t know she liked, thinking _maybe_ she liked her back, and then Karolina got torn away from her to _die_.

That fucked her up.

Not to mention on top of that, Nico then fucked up everything by not giving Alex his well-deserved closure, _and_ now Nico knew she wasn’t _Nico_ , because Nico didn’t exist and she was really Tina Minoru, dressed up as a seventeen year old. Her lips tingled with the memory of Karolina’s tongue on hers—the memory that shouldn’t belong to her, because she didn’t deserve it, because Nico’s existence was a lie and Karolina deserved better than a half-baked goth whose only personality trait was rebelling.

Nico closed her eyes.

“Um—” Karolina cleared her throat. “There’s—there’s something else.” Nico looked back at her, concerned. Karolina was biting her lip, not looking at them. “You all need to hear this.”

Alex and Gert wandered over—clearly listening anyways. Nico suppressed a twinge of annoyance.

Karolina fidgeted with Nico’s pants. “Jonah—the man that stopped us at the dig site—he’s… my father.”

Gert blinked. “What? That’s—”

“—Insane,” Molly interrupted.

“What about your dad?” Chase asked.

“I don’t—I don’t know what he is.” Karolina frowned. Nico’s heart ached for her. It hurt to discover you weren’t who you thought you were—but then again, Karolina had some experience in that field. “I don’t know whose side he’s on.”

“Well, he clearly sold us out,” Gert pointed out.

“You don’t _know_ that,” Karolina snapped. “There could’ve been a hundred reasons why everything went wrong—”

“Alright, enough,” Nico sighed. “We need the Staff. And we need to not be tracked around. What’s the plan?”

Alex took a deep breath. Nico wanted to shut him out—shut _everyone_ out, but mostly him.

“We’re taking two teams. Molly and Gert will stay behind to make sure the Minorus don’t catch onto us—”

“And how exactly are we going to do that?” Gert interrupted, clearly annoyed. “We’re two teenage girls, one of whom is freakishly strong, and the other of whom has a dinosaur. How do you expect us to keep the Minorus occupied?”

“Figure it out,” Alex said with a much greater overtone of impatience than Nico expected. “Nico and I will get the tracker. Karolina and Chase will get the Staff.”

“No!” Nico shouted too quickly, too frantically, too loudly. Everyone stared at her. She felt her cheeks flushing with heat. “I just—I need to go get the Staff, right? It only responds to me. And I won’t be very useful getting the tracker, so you should take Chase to do that instead.”

“No offense, Nico, but I’m not leaving you to make out with your girlfriend on a mission,” Alex said flatly.

“That’s not fair—” Karolina began hotly, probably objecting to being called Nico’s girlfriend more than anything, but Alex cut her off. Nico bit back her sharp, stinging words.

“Nico, your tracker’s probably going to be DNA locked,” Alex interrupted. “And I’m the one who knows WIZARD tech.”

Nico felt her stomach curdle. She didn’t want to be away from Karolina right now—not for a second— _especially_ if she was trading Karolina for Alex. She wanted to curl up in Karolina’s arms and never leave, but Alex was right. He’d outplayed her, and he was almost definitely going to confront her again, and Nico couldn’t believe how _insensitive_ he was being; not to mention how Alex thought Nico just wanted to be with Karolina to make out. Like, sure, _Nico_ wanted that, but Karolina obviously didn’t, and Nico wasn’t going to assault her or anything like that.

“What if I go with Karolina?” Molly suggested, making knowing eye contact with Nico. Molly had grossly misunderstood Nico’s distress, but hey, she was trying, at least.

“Why?” Gert nudged Molly’s arm.

“Well, what if we need to fight? We should have protection in there, and Alex and Nico are gonna be _totally_ useless in a fight—”

“Hey—” Karolina interrupted, but was interrupted again by Alex.

“That’s not true,” Alex said. “Plus, we need you with Gert. Chase knows science—he can help with the Staff.”

“If you break it, I’ll kill you,” Nico mumbled. Chase grinned nervously.

“I won’t break your stick.”

“Hold him to that, Karolina,” Nico said. Karolina nodded against Nico’s shoulder.

“So, what—Molly and I stay behind to get murdered by Nico’s billionaire parents and the _police_ , and you guys just dick around in their house while we do that?”

“We’re not dicking around,” Alex said. “We have a precise mission that we’re going to accomplish as quickly as possible.

Gert sighed.

 

Nico couldn’t stop her stomach from turning over when they got anywhere _near_ her former house. She sat practically in Karolina’s lap in the backseat, feet on the seat, her head leaned back into Karolina’s chest. She could lean up and kiss Karolina’s chin if she wanted to. She didn’t.

Karolina’s arms settled around Nico’s waist again, drawing circles idly on Nico’s stomach. Nico felt the contact like electricity—but not the warm, pleasant tingles of Karolina tracing circles on Nico’s calves. This kind felt sharp and accusing.

“So, plan?” Chase asked Alex, who was driving. Alex gripped the wheel, pulling into an inconspicuous gas station parking lot that Nico barely recognized. She figured it was a ten minute walk to her house from here.

“You and I are—”

“Chase is staying here with Gert,” Molly said firmly. “You need protection, Alex.”

Alex sighed, clearly too tired to argue, despite the fact that they’d _just_ had this conversation.

“Chase is staying here with Gert,” Alex agreed. “You and Karolina will get the Staff. Nico and I are getting the tracker disabled.”

“And if my mom knows we’re there?” Nico shuddered. “Is she home?”

Alex smiled. “I went to the library yesterday to borrow a computer. Tina’s swamped with work meetings today—something about a new proposal for a cutting edge product. Wouldn’t even tell me what it was.”

“And… my dad?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Probably out with Chase’s mom or something. Seriously, he’s never home when Tina isn’t.”

Nico shivered, pressing further into Karolina. She wondered if her dad knew she was… her mother. He had to know, didn’t he?

“Hey,” Karolina mumbled into Nico’s ear. “Is that my sweater?”

Nico looked down at the mustard yellow, oversized, cable knit sweater she’d picked out in the thrift store that she definitely did _not_ lift from Karolina’s bag early that morning. She’d been _freezing_ , and her own sweater was wet from her washing it the day before, so. Karolina’s.

In hindsight, it seemed like a poor choice.

“Oh,” Nico didn’t even think about how Karolina would be utterly disgusted that she was wearing her clothes, didn’t think about how Karolina probably hated the sight of Tina Minoru in her sweater. “You can have it back, sorry—”

“No, it’s okay.” Karolina planted a small kiss to Nico’s temple. “It looks good on you.” Nico wished her words felt real, instead of whatever act they were putting on together. Whatever lie Karolina decided to play to save face.

Nico missed Alex describing the rest of the plan, too busy mulling over her self-loathing. She assumed she’d be filled in later, anyways, or at least be too stuck onto Alex’s side to deviate from whatever he had in mind. The thought nauseated her, slightly. She didn’t want to be around Alex—around someone who made her feel angry and guilty and frustrated and upset and every other negative emotion in the book. She felt used—she wasn’t sure why, but she did. Like her emotions had been played with and discarded. The thought made her draw further into Karolina’s chest.

Apparently, along the line, it was decided that Gert and Chase would remain behind to distract the Minorus (‘distract’ meant ‘make out in the car until everyone else get back,’ she guessed). Molly and Karolina would retrieve the staff. And Alex and Nico would disable her tracker.

Gert and Chase were left in the van in the gas station parking lot, and the rest of them began their walk to Nico’s house in the various disguises Nico and Chase had picked out. Karolina wore Chase’s bomber jacket and a striped crop top—plus some black lipstick she looked _awful_ in. Nico struggled with the impulse to kiss it all off. She also struggled with the impulse to break down crying, apologizing. God, nothing was going her way today.

Molly was at least looking more like herself again, despite the zebra patterned leggings; she was back to cat hats, at least. Alex looked the same as always, except he didn’t wear his glasses (they were in his pocket, Nico hoped). As for Nico herself, she had Karolina’s sweater, so at least nobody would recognize her. Nobody that had known her for less than two years, at least.

The trek up was made in silence—Karolina held Nico’s hand, rubbing circles on Nico’s palm idly. Nico wondered how long Karolina would keep the facade.

When they arrived at her house, Nico discovered Alex had been right—neither of her parents’ cars were in the driveway. She felt a weight release from her stomach that she hadn’t realized was there. Karolina looked at her—Nico pretended not to see it and marched up to her house, typing the PIN into the front door.

 _“Welcome home, Nico,”_ Wizey said.

“Hey, Wizey.” Nico closed her eyes, having forgotten what it was like to be home. _Home_. The word felt hollow. “Can you turn off the cameras in my mom’s office?”

_“I’m afraid not. Alpha User has forbidden it.”_

“Damn,” Alex said. “Guess we do this the old-fashioned way.”

“Wha—” Nico didn’t bother finishing, just watched as Alex pulled out a fat roll of Star Wars duct tape. “How long have you had that?”

“I figured your mom would have some tricks, still,” Alex shrugged. Nico shook off the mention of her mother, and they stepped across the threshold, into her former home.

“It’s so cold, still,” Nico grumbled. She tightened her grip on Karolina’s hand, ignoring the voice in her head telling her Karolina hated her, deserved better, despised contact with her. If Karolina could pretend, so could she.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded. Nico wanted to smack him.

“It’s been like this,” Karolina said thoughtfully. “Ever since…”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence.

“Where’s the Staff?” Molly asked.

“In the living room,” Nico said. “It’s in a big glass case on the wall. Can’t miss it.”

Molly and Karolina nodded.

“Be safe,” Karolina whispered to Nico, finally letting go of her hand. They walked off down the hall, and, despite Karolina being only a few feet away, Nico’s heart ached. She and Alex turned towards the stairs, where her mother’s office and the bedrooms lay in wait.

 

* * *

 

Gert couldn’t stop herself from _moaning_ as Chase’s tongue slid against hers. She pressed further, deeper, craving more. Chase breathed heavily underneath her as her hands slid across his chest, feeling his muscles through the tee shirt he wore that Gert honestly suspected was Karolina’s too-big Beatles shirt. They way Chase sucked on her bottom lip? _That_ sent her over the moon, and she almost came right then and there when he pulled her lip with his teeth. ‘Seeing stars’ might be a little dramatic for just making out in the front seat of a van parked in a gas station parking lot, but goddamnit, Gert was feeling dramatic.

Gert hated herself for this. Hated herself for taking more than she deserved, hated herself for letting herself be a projection of Chase’s feelings, hated herself for _enjoying_ it. She pulled away. Chase chased her lips for a moment before realizing that she really was pulling back, and his eyes flew open.

“Is everything okay?” He asked. She couldn’t stop herself from imagining concern in his voice, imagining want in his eyes.

“I—don’t you think we should be on the lookout for the Minorus? Alex and them are probably at the house by now.”

Chase frowned. “Right.”

Gert felt bad for doing that to him, but really, shouldn’t he be the one feeling guilty? He was the one imagining her as anyone else, after all—she wasn’t stupid. The was no way Chase—perfectly handsome, athletic, brilliant Chase—would see someone like her and… want her.

So she sat in the passenger seat of the van in silence, letting her music play on the AUX cord, as Chase drove around the few blocks near the Minoru house.

 

_Cloaked in her shadow_

_Her darkness bellows_

_The color of the day_

_quickly fades into grey_

 

_Oooo, How she whispers_

_Oooo, How she whispers_

_Oooo, How she whispers to you_

 

* * *

 

“So.” Molly stopped once they reached the Minoru living room. “What’s going on with you and Nico?”

She didn’t miss the way Karolina tensed. “What?”

Molly rolled her eyes. She could swear that sometimes the older kids were like, way more stupid than everyone gave them credit for.

“I’m not stupid,” she said, impatient. “What’s going on with you and Nico?”

“Nothing. We need—”

“Is she shutting you out?”

“Molly—”

“Hey, Gert says I’m smart for my age.”

“Gert also says to keep your nose out of other people’s business,” Karolina grumbled.

“She doesn’t practice what she preaches,” Molly sighed, thinking about Gert’s nosiness and how it had gotten them both into trouble before. Karolina sighed.

“Nico’s preoccupied—and besides, she’s putting up boundaries, and I should respect them.”

Karolina was a lot of things, including a glowing rainbow lesbian, but smart was _not_ one of them. Molly was pretty sure if she showed Karolina a meme, Karolina would ask who it was. She just had that sort of brain—pop culture didn’t really factor into her equation.

“This is so sad, Wizey, play Despacito.”

_“Error: unrecognized user.”_

“Why—we can’t draw attention to ourselves!” Karolina said indignantly. Molly shrugged. She spied a large glass case on the wall with the Staff in it. _Bingo_.

“Anyways, you’re being dumb.”

“I’m—what?” Karolina spluttered. “I’m _not_.”

“No offense, but like, lesbians are dumb.” Molly checked the case for any latch with which to open it. “No dice here. But yeah—one dyke to another right now, you’re dumb.”

“I—you’re—what?”

Molly frowned. “Lesbian? Yeah. Anyways,” Molly peered around the room for anything to release the Staff. Nico had neglected to mention how they might have freed it from the case. “Nico’s totally, like, crying for help, you dumbass.”

“Wh—what? No. No, she just doesn’t want me to be in her business! I’m giving her the space she needs.”

“She doesn’t _want_ space,” Molly huffed, rolling her eyes. She couldn’t believe how socially inept Karolina was, sometimes. Like, sure, it was totally cute that Karolina was all over respecting boundaries and being nervous about overstepping, but _seriously_ —Nico clearly wanted to hide in Karolina’s arms forever and just didn’t know how to ask. “She wants you to be there for her.”

“I _am,_ ”  Karolina said, her voice raising slightly. Molly shot her a look and Karolina blew out a breath. “But she basically told me that she doesn’t like me like that, and she wants Alex instead, and I—”

“Stop.” Molly held up a hand. “What?”

Karolina opened and closed her mouth a few times. “It’s complicated,” she said reluctantly.

“What are you _talking_ about? That girl is like, in love with you.”

Karolina flushed. “No, she’s not. And we need to get the Staff.”

“Yeah, but this is way better. Nico _totally_ would not pick Alex over you, what are you _on_?” Molly suspected the answer was Dumbass Lesbian Juice, but that was another thing entirely.

“Not what Nico said,” Karolina grumbled under her breath.

“She’s bad at communication.” Molly shrugged. “But right now she needs you.”

“But she doesn’t _want_ me.”

“Well, she’s obviously having some identity issues,” Molly pointed out. “I mean, she did just find out she’s a _clone_. That’s rough on anybody.” Molly rotated around the room to the desk, still looking around for anything to open the case. “Will you check the wall over there?”

Karolina made her way over to the wall. “Yeah, but… she hasn’t said anything about that yet, and I don’t want to push her before she’s ready, you know?”

Molly was honestly just impressed Karolina was so willing to open up to her in the first place, but Karolina _was_ always the one to treat her more fairly than anyone else. More like an equal.

“Yeah. That’s cute, you know? Totally get that. But—” Molly grunted, pulling the side of the wood to see if the desk came apart, careful not to use her strength. “She’s probably scared you’re gonna like, hate her or something.”

“What? Why?” Karolina frowned, worry and concern etched into every pore. “How—how could I ever hate her?”

Molly opened a drawer. “Wizey, can you open this case?”

_“Error: unrecogni—”_

“Yeah, yeah,” Molly grumbled. “Anyways,” Molly opened a desk drawer. Pencils. “I don’t know, I’d probably be worried about what my girlfriend thought of me if I found out I was a clone of an objectively horrible person.”

Karolina’s eyes widened. “She’s not—”

“If you’re about to object to me calling her your girlfriend,” Molly slammed the desk drawer shut. “Wrong focus.”

Karolina blinked. “Would she think that? That I could…” Karolina took in a deep breath. “I mean… I’m upset, right? I might be a _little_ pissed but I couldn’t like, _hate_ her.”

Molly opened the last drawer of the desk, piecing together the next thing she wanted to say, but Wizey vocalized first.

_“Manual override activated.”_

 

* * *

 

Nico was going to combust if she had to spend any more time near _Alex_ . Alex, who lied to her, betrayed her, had the _audacity_ to accuse her of _cheating_ when she kissed Karolina (and for the _last_ time, they didn’t have sex!). She broke off whatever she had with Alex the second he admitted the truth, because she just couldn’t believe his sorry, stuck-up—

“Hey, need you.” Alex stood over her mom’s computer that Nico had never touched in her life. Nico frowned and walked over, the carpet feeling more a hundred times more expensive now that she was wearing ratty, used joggers and beat-up heels. Nico didn’t want to think about the germs on her clothes—especially since they’d washed everything with laundry pods in the river, despite Gert’s complaining about river pollution.

Alex hovered over some program that Nico couldn’t make heads or tails of—she couldn’t understand any basic programming even on a good day, let alone today. She saw the words ‘PROJECT DOLLY’ at the top of the window, so she assumed Alex had some idea what he was doing.

“This could be not even you,” Alex mumbled under his breath. His fingers flew over the keyboard. “I just assumed, because—”

“—Dolly was the first successful clone. She was a sheep, right?”

“Yeah. Although she died _way_ early due to complications so… let's hope your mom didn’t include a self-destruct program.”

Nico’s stomach twisted at the thought. She still couldn’t wholly process it, process _any_ of it, let alone just accept it and move on. She stifled the thought by burying her head in her hands, or more accurately, the too-long sleeves of Karolina’s sweater that didn’t smell like Karolina yet. She pouted into it, wishing she _could_ smell Karolina. Wishing Karolina would stroke her hair and kiss her forehead again and just pretend, pretend for a little while longer that she didn’t hate Nico’s guts. Or, more accurately, Tina’s.

“So, not you,” Alex groaned. Nico wasn’t even paying attention anymore.

“You haven’t needed my blood for anything yet,” Nico said, but just as the words left her mouth, a pop-up appeared that said: DNA CONFIRMATION REQUIRED. Nico sighed.

“Where’s the stupid blood drawer?” Nico squinted around at the computer, not seeing a tiny needle meant to extricate her DNA from her blood—or her mother’s blood. She and Alex turned over the computer desk contents for a minute before Alex said:

“Where was it on your mom’s desk at WIZARD?”

“I don’t know.” Nico frowned. “It was a big touch screen.”

“Well, touch the desk?”

Nico stared down at the glass desk. “Really?”

“Worth trying, right?”

Nico rolled her eyes and stuck her hand on the glass. Nothing happened.

“Nice.”

“Great,” Alex grumbled.

“Hey, wait.” Nico’s brain churned out a thought that wasn’t fully formed, but better than nothing. “Wizey? Can you find my tracker program?”

“Nico, wh—”

_“Certainly. Now displaying Project Huxley.”_

“Huxley?” Nico echoed.

“Like… like Aldous Huxley. _Brave New World._ ” Alex clicked through another pop-up on the screen. “That whole book was pretty fucked.”

“I’m guessing it involved… involved cloning?” The word felt cold, hard, unwanted on her tongue. Nothing like the memory of Karolina’s lips on hers. Nico shut her eyes to block out the thought, block out the intrusiveness of her own brain not leaving her _alone_ when she was trying to focus.

“Yeah. It was about these people that created a society of human mass production—humans were cloned in tubes, and they all worshipped Henry Ford as the father of mass production.”

“So, like, _1984_.”

“Not really?” Alex punched a code in, presumably Tina’s password (that he _still_ never told Nico—seriously, at this point she’d just dropped it because of the whole Amy business). “It dealt more with like, the ethics and stuff. _1984_ was more about government control—and it was written during the Red Scare. Huxley was British, and he wrote it in 1932. Aha,” Alex added onto that train of thought, as another DNA CONFIRMATION REQUIRED pop-up appeared in front of him. “Jackpot.”

“We didn’t figure out where to put it in last time,” Nico reminded him impatiently.

“I think—here, what if you try putting your hand on the mouse?”

Nico put her hand on the mouse. The thing felt warm and hummed with electricity. The screen displayed a WELCOME, TINA MINORU message and Nico drew her hand back quickly. She hated the words, hated what they meant to her, hated the way they felt like weights in her throat, falling down into her stomach but would eventually fill her up and clog every orifice and suffocate her.

 _Tina Minoru_.

Alex disabled and deleted the tracking program easily, and, after a sweep to make sure Tina had left Nico no other surprises, Alex logged off the computer and wiped everything down with a Lysol wipe from the kitchen.

“God, I miss my bed,” Nico sighed as they walked past her room. Alex paused.

“I know we didn’t come here for any of this but… did you want to get anything? On your way out?”

Nico hesitated. Sure, she had $800 worth of makeup in a bag, all of her clothes, all of her shoes—all of her belongings, really.

“Can we risk letting my… my mom know we were here?”

“What can she do about it?” Alex gave her a hesitant smile, and Nico took the flimsy excuse for what it was, and opened her bedroom door.

She almost cried at the familiar scent of all her perfumes, candles, and laundry soap. Her bed lay exactly as she’d left it—everything did. Her laundry still sat in its basket in the closet, some of it dirty, some of it not. Her makeup still lay on her dresser. Her shoes were on the floor, exactly the same. Nico took in a deep breath.

“I don’t even know what we could take,” she said.

“Anything you want,” Alex replied. Nico tried not to think of the last time Alex was in her room—how she’d taken off her shirt and let Alex touch her in just her bra, how he’d kissed her outside of her house, how _good_ it had felt. She squashed down the memory, too tumultuous in her own head to deal with that at the moment.

It wasn’t that she still felt for Alex, or wished they were still together, or anything like that—but really, she felt hurt, cheated, and used, like Alex had strung her along and then _conveniently_ forgot to mention he possessed crucial information regarding her sister’s suicide. And then there was Karolina. Karolina, whose very name brought up a whole host of emotions Nico didn’t know how to confront—fear, anxiety, uncertainty.

Passion. Desire. _Want._

Nico wanted Karolina, she’d admit. There was something different about kissing Karolina—something fundamentally altered from kissing Alex. Kissing Alex had been great, sure. She’d enjoyed it. She thought about it at night. But kissing Karolina— _that_ was otherworldly, like kissing the stars—or drops of sunlight that didn’t burn—like something refreshing, all-encompassing, a maelstrom of raw emotion that sucked Nico in, but Nico didn’t care because when Karolina kissed her, when Nico brushed her tongue against Karolina’s, when Karolina’s hands left goosebumps on Nico’s skin wherever they touched—she didn’t need to remember how to breathe. She was already drowning.

 _And then you fucked it up_ , Nico berated herself. She knew she needed to tie things up with Alex before she even tried apologizing to Karolina, but she just didn’t know how. Every time she wanted to bring it up, the thought of saying the words aloud weighted on her, the thought of speaking something aloud that shouldn’t be spoken, because if she said it, then it became real, and Nico might break.

Nico picked up the tiniest bottle of perfume she owned. It held only a tablespoon of fluid, but Nico knew it well; the tiny, handblown glass bottle had been a gift from Amy when she visited New York during a sophomore tennis tournament—she’d bought it from an Egyptian man selling his own bottles. The perfume itself was a gift from Karolina’s mother to Tina, and Tina had given it to her because she ‘didn’t like the smell.’ _Sable Blanc._ It was Nico’s favorite—an expensive scent, so she used it only on special occasions. It smelled like something just beyond Nico’s ability to describe, but she knew the emotions she associated with it well—like when she smelled it, she was transported to the quietest beach in the world, in the latest hours of the night, with nothing but a mug of hot peach white tea, and a bonfire made of driftwood crackled a few feet away. It smelled like all of that—driftwood, the beach, the night sky, hot peach white tea—but that and more. Like a sense of safety, and serenity.

“Just… just this,” Nico said out loud, drawing herself back into her body. If there was one thing, _one thing_ Tina Minoru couldn’t claim from Nico, it was this.

“You sure? You don’t want like… clothes?” _Something useful?_ Nico heard the unspoken addition that she knew Alex bit back, but it didn’t matter. The only thing she needed, the only thing she _wanted_ , was some scrap, some taste, some small reminder that she was _not_ her mother.

Nico stepped out of her room, perfume clutched in her hand like a lifeline. In a way, it was; Alex shut the door behind them, and they walked down the stairs towards the living room in silence.

They bumped into Molly and Karolina on their way out, Karolina holding the Staff.

“You didn’t break it,” Nico said, avoiding eye contact. “That’s good.”

“Yeah, it was a bitch and a half to get it out of there.”

“Language, Molly,” Alex said. “But I’m glad you guys figured it out.”

“And the tracker?” Karolina asked, her voice containing a note Nico couldn’t read. Disgust, probably. Disgust that Nico had a tracker like an animal, or a prized possession.

Nico had expected the thought of being rid of it to be more liberating.

“Gone,” Nico said. “Well—not gone. Disabled.”

“We wiped the program so that Tina can’t just log on and reactivate it. And—” Alex grinned. “I hooked it up with something nice.”

“What, like Bluetooth?” Molly clapped her hands. “Oh my God, can we play our music with Nico? Do you have speakers?”

Karolina jabbed her with her elbow and whispered, “Insensitive, Molly.”

“Not Bluetooth. Now, if Tina happens to have some backup file we don’t know about, and tries to reactivate it…” Alex trailed off, like he expected whatever he programmed to activate right then. When it didn’t, he cleared his throat. “Basically, I got it to give Tina a picture of this one meme from like, _forever_ ago.”

Nico frowned. She’d been deep in her own thoughts, maybe she hadn’t seen him program it.

“Oooh, what meme?” Molly grinned excitedly.

“It’s, ah—” Alex scratched his neck. “Not for fourteen year olds.”

A loud crack of thunder interrupted them. Nico jolted like she’d been shocked, the surprise of it and the fact that she was already on edge from being in her _house_ combining into a somewhat disproportionate reaction. Karolina shot her a look of concern, and Nico ignored it.

“Well, we should get going,” Alex said.

Karolina handed Nico the Staff. Nico closed her eyes, feeling the weight of it, the familiarity. She felt like she’d always had it—the uncomfortable thought that she felt that way because of her mother’s DNA perturbed her. She frowned, holding it out. Could she claim such a weapon—such a close relic to her mother? The bottle of perfume in her pocket felt heavy. She wondered if she was just tricking herself. But then it didn’t matter, because they heard _very loud honking_ from the street, and Alex, who stood near the window, suddenly had eyes wide and panickedly shouted:

“We need to go, _now!_ ”

None of them questioned him, just ran. Out the door, through the rain that now fell in sheets, into the van and then, tearing off down the street.

“Why—” Nico gasped, catching her breath, her thoughts scattered by Karolina’s nervous hand rubbing her shoulder. “Why did we run?”

Chase gripped the wheel and made a sharp left turn, everyone else falling right. Nico pressed further into Karolina’s hip, and Karolina’s hand around her shoulder tightened. Nico squeezed her eyes shut, forcing down the bubble of emotions and reminding herself that Karolina absolutely despised her at the moment and fully deserved to.

“We were spotted,” Gert said, once everyone had settled back into place.

“By who?” Karolina asked, her skin still glittering but fading out quickly. Chase looked at Nico through the rearview mirror.

“Your dad. Probably on his way home from another affair with my mom, honestly.”

Nico frowned. The only sound in the van now was the sound of rain, pouring onto the metal roof, and Gert’s music. As Chase wound his way through the neighborhood and back onto the highway, Gert’s music crooned to them:

 

_As I'm so close to magic_

_So close to home_

_Yeah, I'm so close to magic_

_So close to home_

 

* * *

 

_**30 minutes ago** — _

 

After Gert pulled away from Chase and they drove in _agonizing_ silence, listening to Gert’s music, Chase couldn’t stop himself from worrying his lip as they drove in increasingly large circles around the Minoru house. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking that Gert must _hate_ him, or hate something about him. Why else would she pull away from him like that? Why else would she withdraw, almost disgusted? What had he done?

His hands drumming on the steering wheel sounded like his heartbeat.

“Hey, does it look like rain?” Gert asked, softly, so softly Chase almost didn’t hear. He already could barely hear her over Moda Spira.

“A little,” Chase said, pulling into the really _really_ nice neighborhood that just barely straddled the line between private property and Topanga State Park. “Maybe it’s the break we need?”

Gert gave him a curious look.

“Rain helps. It’s…” Chase hesitated, unsure of how to explain himself. Rain just… helped. It made him feel better, newer, cleaner. Like a fresh start. He must sound like an idiot to her. Of course she knew about rain, she wasn’t a moron—or someone who associated small emotions like that with the careless whims of nature.

“Hey, pull into Topanga.” Gert pointed to the turn on the right, where the neighborhood ended, that said _Topanga State Park_. Chase shrugged and didn’t question her, choosing to follow her instincts.

“Turn here,” Gert said after a few minutes of them silently driving on unpaved gravel paths, listening to nothing but distant thunder and Gert’s song _finally_ changing—Chase liked The 1975 just as much as anybody, but he definitely blew out in relief when Oh Wonder took over the stereo—and all Chase could think about was Gert.

Her tongue in his mouth just minutes ago. Her smile. Her beautiful, beautiful eyes that melted his insides to goo whenever he looked at them. He wanted to bang his head into the steering wheel and cry, because the fact that he’d fallen for her killed him. It felt _unfair_ , like a cruel joke from God.

 _Oh, you like this girl? Have sex with her and then be forced to live in close proximity to each other, but the catch is she doesn’t like you back_.

It felt like a sick prank. Chase was pretty sure his lip bled with the amount of biting it he was doing, trying not to listen to the song playing.

 

_'Cause I'm kicking up stones without you_

_Can't pick up the phone without you_

_I'm a little bit lost without you_

_Without you_

 

“Turn here,” Gert said after a long moment.

Chase turned where she directed, the gravel beneath the tires giving way to the shittiest dirt trail he’d ever seen.

“Now—I wouldn’t ask,” Chase bit his lip, the trees crowding closer and closer to the van, and he was beginning to think this trail wasn’t a trail at all. “But is this even a—”

“We’re almost there,” Gert said, sitting up in her seat, straining her neck to peer through the trees. She untied the blue flannel around her waist (that Chase picked out) and put it on, adjusting the collar as she spoke. “I used to come here all the time when I was a kid.”

“Where is here?” Chase asked.

“A very off-the-beaten-path my… my birth mother used to take me on.” Chase heard the tone of her voice shift, heard the way she got quiet. “We—we never had the money for camping or like, space stuff that I was into, so she would take me out here.”

“To stargaze?” Chase couldn’t help but think it was a poor site—the trees covered just about every glimpse of the sky.

“Well, yeah, but not here, dick.” Gert switched the song to something that Chase didn’t recognize, but it sounded vaguely Broadway.

 

_Have you ever felt like nobody was there?_

_Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere?_

_Have you ever felt like you could disappear?_

_Like you could fall, and no one would hear?_

 

 _Yeah_ , Chase caught himself thinking. He almost didn’t notice Gert singing along softly, almost didn’t notice the way she looked away when he tried to catch her eye, almost didn’t notice the way her expression changed when the piano kicked in after the chorus.

“Hey,” Chase said. “What’s up?”

“Hmm? Nothing. Nothing, I’m fine.” The cello played a note as the man singing went _Ohh_ , and Gert closed her eyes for a second. “This is from Dear Evan Hansen, have you heard of it?” She barely waited for Chase to shake his head before she carried on, “It premiered on Broadway last year—it’s about a teenager with social anxiety, he can’t make friends really easily? And he, um, he ends up sort of tricking people into thinking that he was the best friend of this kid that dies, right, and it ends up blowing up like, _a lot_ , and he can’t really fix it because now like, hundreds of thousands of people believe him, and he does end up coming clean in the end and it’s… it’s really good.” Gert cleared her throat, flushing a little. “Sorry—I know you probably don’t even care—”

“No!” Chase tightened his grip on the wheel at the way Gert spoke so self consciously, like she wanted to take up as little space as possible until she disappeared. “No, it sounds really cool. When did you see it?”

“I, um… haven’t.” Gert pushed up her glasses. “I’ve listened to the whole soundtrack like, a bazillion times, and I was gonna read the book that’s coming out next year, but like, I haven’t seen it.” _We can’t exactly afford Broadway_ , were her unspoken words that Chase heard. She didn’t have to say them. They both knew it.

“It sounds awesome. Do you have the whole soundtrack?”

“On here? Yeah! Yeah, I do, but you have to listen to it in order.” She said it in such a _Gert_ way that Chase knew he had no choice. Honestly, he didn’t mind that. “Oh! Turn here!”

Chase slammed the brake. “Turn _where?_ ” There was nowhere for him to turn, just trees on either side.

“ _Here_. On your right. There’s no trail, but it’s where we always parked.”

Chase squinted and decided Gert probably knew better than he did. Surprisingly, the van didn’t hit anything on its way off the barest trace of a dirt path, just made cracking noises that branches made when you rolled two tons of metal over them.

“You can stop,” Gert said after the tail end of the van obscured itself in the shrubbery. “We just needed to get off the path… just in case.” There was a hint of warning in her voice that Chase definitely agreed with. Even though this van was unmarked, stolen from a gas station, it was still better to be cautious.

Gert ripped the AUX out of her iPod and hopped out of the van almost before Chase removed the key. He eyed her, wondering if the eagerness was from anxiety or excitement, but regardless of which one it was, she was gone before he could tell.

Gert led him further down the trail for a few minutes, silently. Their hands brushed. Gert flinched back like she’d been electrocuted.

“Sorry—” She started.

“Don’t worry about it,” Chase said, ignoring the twinge in his heart at Gert being so jumpy around him, so guarded, so cautious. He _hated_ it.

Gert bit her lip and looked away. Chase hated that—hated thinking about her soft, _soft_ lips against his, their tongues in each others mouths, their hands wandering, the _sex_ they had—it felt unfair that he should carry that around and know that she didn’t want it. She didn’t feel romantically towards him, but Chase didn’t know how else to feel.

“Well,” Gert said, once they crested a hill and the trees thinned into a clearing. “Here we are. This is the backside of the Griffith Observatory property.”

“Griffith Observatory?” Chase echoed. Gert rolled her eyes.

“I _did_ say my mom and I used to stargaze here.”

Chase could concede that, he just hadn’t expected an _actual_ observatory.

“Where’s… the observatory?”

Gert scrunched up her nose. “About half a mile that way?” She pointed directly in front of them. “I don’t know, I’ve never been. But I _have_ been here. My mom and I would come out here late at night—we left a bag somewhere around here with a guitar and some trail mix pouches…” Gert trailed off.

“I’m guessing you didn’t leave the telescope,” Chase joked. Gert smiled humorlessly.

“We couldn’t afford one. We’d come out here and use our _eyes._ Barbaric, right?” Gert looked around. “The guitar and stuff—we kept it in a trash bag to protect them from the rain. In a case, of course,” she added quickly at the end, probably seeing Chase’s reaction to that. “The guitar was free—I won it in a raffle when I was like, three, so I didn’t mind leaving it here.”

“You could enter a raffle when you were three?"

Gert rolled her eyes. "The tickets were cheap, and I was with my mom. Besides—we were just wandering around this duck park, and my mom and I didn't have anything else to do, so we bought tickets, and I won it."

“Duck park?”

“Well, yeah—it was all in theme, the guitar’s painted with ducks. It was a duck hunting thing with my dad, and my mom didn’t want to go, but we did, because my dad was big into hunting, and we were there to, like, support him or something. I don't know—I don't even think he was with us, he was off shooting ducks while we ate popcorn and spent our money.”

“A _duck_ hunting contest?”

“I don’t remember the whole thing, honestly. My mom used to talk about it, because I’d ask about the guitar.”

“Well, were you any good at playing it?”

Gert shot him a look of amused annoyance. “My fingers are _magical_ , thank you very much.”

Chase flushed bright red, and considering that Gert did too, they seemed to be on the same page. They stared at each other for a moment until Chase couldn’t stop himself from cracking up at her face. She looked _mortified_.

“I didn’t—you _pervert_ , I didn’t mean it like _that_!” Gert laughed a little.

‘You—you’re laughing too,” Chase said in between fits of laughter.

Gert squeezed her lips together. “Am not.”

“You are!”

Gert let out a loud snort, and finally broke down in giggles. “Okay—okay that… that was funny.”

Chase finally relaxed a little, feeling the tension from earlier ease just enough, just enough that he could breathe.

Gert’s eyes met his, and they stared at each other for a second. Her eyes—dark, melty, beautiful—felt like they were piercing his soul, his heart, and he didn’t know what to say, but he should say _something_.

“Thank you,” spilled out of his mouth before he could stop himself. She gave him a perplexed look.

“What for?”

“For…” He almost wanted to backpedal, say _forget it_ , say _anything_ to make her stop looking at him with those big brown eyes that absolutely blended all of his insides into mush.

“Chase. What?”

“For being you.” He smiled nervously. She snorted.

“Well, I have _always_ been me. Glad you noticed, though.”

“No, I’m serious. You’re very… _you_.”

“Chase, what’s this about?”

He bit his lip, fidgeting his hands. _Your amazing personality, your perfect looks, your drop dead gorgeous body_. He said none of that.

“Your amazing sex, of course.”

Gert choked. “Oh, that’s cruel.”

“What?” He expected a rebuke, a lecture for making a dirty joke, a name calling and some fun teasing not… _self deprecation_. “What???”

Gert looked away. “I know I was bad, but good God—”

“ _Bad_ ?” His head spun. The memories of that night were probably rosy colored, sure, but how in the world could she think she performed _badly_?

Gert frowned at him. “You don’t have to _pretend_ —I know you’ve had sex with like, a hundred girls and mine was definitely down there—”

“Gert, I’ve literally never had sex before.”

Gert stopped. She blinked. She opened her mouth and closed it again. “Never?”

“Never.”

Gert seemed to roll that around in her head for a moment. “Well… you were my first, too.”

It wasn’t that Chase _couldn’t_ believe that, but also he couldn’t believe that.

“ _What_?”

“Yeah. Surprise, nobody wants to sleep with the fat, ugly, obnoxious girl—” Gert bit her lip and pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes, underneath her glasses.

“What?” Chase couldn’t stop his head from spinning on its axis. “Gert, that’s not—”

“True?” She interrupted, challenging him. “Yeah, well—not like you would know.”

Chase bit his lip. Seriously, his lip was raw and bleeding from the amount of biting it endured today.

“I don’t—I can’t understand how you’re feeling, but—you’re _amazing,_ Gert, and fuck everybody else.”

Gert laughed a little through the tears. “Well, I didn’t—that’s kinda the point.”

Chase allowed himself a half-smile at that. “Well, then don’t.”

“Yeah.” Gert sniffled and looked away. He thought she might say something else, something relating to that, or maybe crack another joke, but she squinted into the distance instead. “Hey—hey I think that’s our bag?”

She pointed into the tree line, but Chase couldn’t see anything. Not like it mattered, because Gert started jogging towards it, and Chase had to run after her to keep up. Sure enough, a large trash bag sat underneath a tree, looking old and dirty and definitely unsanitary.

“Oh, my god,” Gert opened the bag and withdrew a fabric, guitar-shaped case with a shoulder strap. She unzipped it and spread her hands over a _beautifully_ painted wooden guitar. The artist had painted a pair of mallard ducks on the bottom half of it, and the top was covered in intricate feather designs. “It’s still here.”

“That it is,” Chase said, still marvelling at it. “Hand painted, you said?”

“Hand painted,” Gert affirmed, a small note of pride in her voice. “Probably needs tuning.”

“Well, then tune it.”

Gert shot him a _look_ , but sat down. “We still have trail mix, too.”

“What kind?” Chase asked, opening the trash bag and seeing a _lot_ of packets of trail mix. He saw something with peanuts and cranberries, and grabbed a bag.

“Get me the pretzel ones,” Gert said, strumming a very off chord. “Oh, mama, you need work.”

Chase handed her a bag of pretzel and chocolate ones, and sat down next to her. She tuned the guitar quietly, and he watched her work. She would strum a chord, frown, turn one of the pegs at the top a slight amount, and strum again. Every now and then, she stopped to eat a bite from her bag. The way her hair fell in her face and she tucked it back, the way her glasses slipped down and she pushed them up, the way she licked her lips every few minutes—it all mesmerized him. He could’ve watched her forever.

“I think I got it,” Gert finally said, and she played a chord. It sounded beautiful.

“Awesome.” He reached over and lifted a pretzel from her bag, having finished his own ten minutes ago. “What can you play?”

“Um—” a loud thunderclap interrupted them, and Chase squinted at the sky, which was suddenly much darker than he remembered it being.

“Shit, it’s gonna rain,” Gert said, and shoved the guitar back into the case, and both things into the trash bag. “We need to get back to the Minorus.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Chase stood up and the two of them walked back to the van, Gert with one hand in Chase’s and the other holding the bag with the guitar and trail mix.

They trundled out of the park, Gert playing the guitar idly instead of her music, which Chase felt thankful for. The sound of the guitar felt real, authentic, and somehow just so much more incredibly distracting. The fact that Gert was the one playing it probably factored the most into that.

She hummed to herself, playing the strings. He drove himself insane trying to guess the songs, because she _clearly_ knew them well, but he didn’t recognize any of them. She didn’t sing, either, just hummed and played.

They managed to get out of the park just before the rain fell in torrents.

“Wow, the bottom really dropped out, huh?” Gert said, staring at the grey sheet where there once had been a view of the outside.

“Yeah,” Chase said absently, leaning forward and flicking the wipers to the _all the way_ setting. “Can we even get back to the Minorus?”

Gert shrugged and made an _I don’t know_ sound, so Chase just drove to the best of his memory. It ended up being pretty good, and they got back to Nico’s street before the rest of their day went to shit.

“Hey—” Chase looked in his rearview mirror and saw _Robert Minoru’s car, shit, shit fuck_ . “ _That’s Nico’s dad behind us_.”

Gert whipped around faster than he’d ever seen her. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit—um, shit.”

“What do we _do_?” Chase yelled, panicking, slamming the gas a little bit harder to put some distance between them.

“Well, we can’t let him go home!”

“I—” Robert pulled closer behind them.

“We need to get the others, _now_!”

“We can’t just drive up to his _house_ ,” Chase objected, but they were coming up on the Minoru house _very_ quickly, and they had to make a decision.

“We have to get them,” Gert said, and finally, they were on the same page. Chase pulled into the driveway and honked the horn for a solid ten seconds, hoping _someone_ would hear.

Not a moment later, the rest of them sprinted out the front door and crashed through the side door that Gert _barely_ had time to open.

Chase shot back out of the driveway like a bullet, ignoring Robert’s car honking behind them, ignoring the fact that they’d been made, ignoring everything but the pounding in his heart, his eyes on the road, and the screaming voice inside him that said _OUT_.

He didn’t notice Gert plug in her iPod, holding the guitar silently, until he heard the soft crooning voice of whatever song she was playing.

 

_Wouldn't you like to know_

_Just how I'm doing, it's been too long_

_This place feels just the same_

_Old and forgotten, this frozen sand_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ik griffith observatory isnt in topanga park but fuck that noise lol


	4. stay til the daylight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from stay til the daylight / skillet)

“Oh, my God, Old Lace is still at our campsite!” Gert shouted, giving Alex a worse headache than the one he already had. Seriously, it felt like someone had tied a rubber band around his forehead and was just squeezing him.

“Don’t you have, like, a telepathic connection with her?” Nico asked from next to Molly. She _wasn’t_ sitting on Karolina’s lap, which was interesting. Alex made sure to think on that later. That’s what he told himself about everything, nowadays.

“Yeah, but like—”

“She’s found us the last two times we ditched her.” Gert smacked Chase’s arm at the poor use of language. “Sorry—we didn’t _ditch_ her. She’ll find us, though.”

“Where? Where are we even going?” That was Karolina, although her clouded eyes indicated she was _not_ present in the conversation.

“We can’t go back to the campsite,” Alex pointed out. “Dale and Stacey are as much a part of PRIDE as Robert.”

“And they know where we camped,” Chase finished, just in case anyone had forgotten Dale and Stacey showing up to drop some devastating bombshells.

“Old Lace will be fine,” Molly whispered to Gert as Chase got on the highway. “She’s probably already gone.”

“Yeah,” Gert sniffled. “Yeah.”

Lately, Alex never felt like he _wasn’t_ intruding. Mostly, it was Gert and Chase making lovey eyes at each other, or Karolina and Nico making _fuck me_ eyes at each other, or Molly and Gert having a lovely sister moment that had nothing to do with the first two examples. Alex pretended not to notice the romance blossoming in the air, but truly, ‘twas the season. ‘Twas also the season for heartbreak and disaster, though, considering that Karolina and Nico weren’t even making eye contact (despite Nico wearing Karolina’s sweater?), and Gert and Chase had had some nasty tensions between them ever since the night Karolina had been kidnapped. Alex couldn’t pretend to understand them, but did seem to have eased that, a little.

Alex knew he should try to make amends with Nico. Even if she didn’t forgive him (but he hoped she would), he’d at least like her friendship back. Judging by the way Nico now absently played with Karolina’s sweater, shooting her nervous glances every now and then, Alex wondered if it was out of his place to hope she would kiss him again.

It probably was.

They drove in silence for a little, Gert having unplugged her music and strumming a _very_ pretty guitar. Did she steal it? He had no idea where she’d gotten it, but it didn’t look like she was playing anything—just picking at the strings as a nervous twitch.

“Hey, Gert?” Alex couldn’t stop himself from overhearing Gert and Chase’s conversation up front. In his defense, the van was small, and everyone knew better than to try and carry on anything private in here.

“Yeah?”

“We could… go back to the observatory?”

“What then?” Gert picked a discordant chord, mimicking Alex’s feelings. Lately, everything had been spinning out of his control, spinning beyond Alex’s usual knowledge of what to do next, spinning away from any semblance of a plan. This observatory sounded like the closest thing to a next step Alex had heard in a while.

“We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Alex interjected, and both Gert and Chase shot him mildly pissed looks. Clearly, they hadn’t noticed him eavesdropping. “This observatory sounds perfect. We can catch our breath there.”

“In the pouring rain?” Chase frowned at the grey sky, which was not letting up on the downpour anytime soon.

“It’s the perfect cover. Nobody will track us in this.”

Gert frowned, mulling it over. Alex wasn’t sure when she became the final voice in this discussion, but he was glad it was someone other than him, for once.

“Okay. But I think we should ditch the van.”

Loud objections from the whole group sounded at that—Alex hadn’t been the only one eavesdropping, then.

“She’s right!” Chase shouted above the mess, putting on his turn signal and pressing the brake. “Dale and Stacey saw it, and now Robert, too.”

Chase had a point. It was becoming riskier and riskier to use the same vehicle, now that they were back in civilization.

“He’s right.”

“We’re _all_ right.” Gert kicked her feet onto the dash and started plucking a melody that Alex didn’t _quite_ recognize, but it sounded familiar. “And we’re going to the observatory.”

 

‘The observatory’ turned out to be the very backside of a ten acre property that the privately owned Griffith Observatory sat upon. Alex only knew this because _way_ down at the bottom of the hill, a small wire fence stood with a sign that said ‘TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED,’ and when Alex asked, Gert had shrugged.

“Griffith Observatory is down there. Named after some old codger who lived here and had his _own_ observatory,” she’d said. Apparently Gert had been here before, a few times, with her mother (not Stacey), which was the only reason they were here at all.

The rain hadn’t stopped, and Gert had her new guitar slung over her shoulder in a black case, holding a trash bag in one of her hands. They all stood, soaking wet, looking like dumbass teenagers, at the top of the hill, with nowhere to go and no idea what they were doing.

“Why did we even get out of the van?” Molly grumbled, and Alex could admit that she had a point.

“We didn’t want to lead people here,” Chase responded, and he also had a point. They’d hiked a mile in the rain to this clearing, having abandoned the van twenty minutes ago. Nico shivered from the cold. Alex would’ve given her his jacket if Karolina hadn’t gotten there first—twice, in fact. Karolina had two sweaters to her name, total, and Nico was wearing both of them. Honestly, it might’ve been cute if Alex could squash down the simmering anger.

“What are we even doing here?” Karolina asked now, glowing brightly, limbs loose and open like she wasn’t affected by the cold in the slightest. Hell, maybe she wasn’t, and her powers just worked like that.

“I don’t know! It was the first place we thought of!” Gert snapped.

“We should probably fan out and look for some shelter,” Chase suggested.

“What shelter?” Nico snorted. “We’re out in the middle of a national park.”

“I don’t know, maybe there’s some abandoned shack around here we can wait out the rain in.” Chase shrugged. “No harm in trying?”

“At the very least, we can get an idea of what it looks like around here,” Molly said, light mood returned.

“Or make a plan,” Alex added. “I don’t want to stay here longer than we have to.”

They all nodded agreement, and Gert sighed.

“Let’s fan out, then? Meet back here in… half an hour.”

Molly and Nico walked in one direction, Chase and Karolina in another, and Alex found himself paired with Gert. He almost wanted to call Chase back and go with Karolina just to keep that vicious stare away from him.

Almost.

They walked together, down the hill, towards the wire fence that probably came up to Alex’s shoulders. Alex shivered from the cold, trying not to think about how this rain was soaking him to his bones, trying not to slip in the wet grass and break his neck falling down the hill.

“Do we hop it?” Gert asked when they reached the fence, peering down one way, and then the other, probably looking for a gate.

“Unless you wanna just walk around?”

Gert shook her head, already grabbing the metal with one hand, thrusting her guitar into Alex’s arms with the other. “The rest of them are walking around. No point.” And then Gert hopped the fence with _much_ more grace than Alex would’ve expected from someone her size.

“You coming?” She asked from the other side, wincing at the _squonch_ sound her sandals made in the mud. Alex would’ve sweated a little if he wasn’t freezing his ass off. He handed her the guitar over the fence, then climbed over much more slowly, painstakingly making sure he didn’t slip. He could feel Gert’s eyes burning into him as he landed safely on the other side.

“Done?” She rolled her eyes and trudged off, not waiting for an answer.

“Hey,” Alex jogged a little to catch up. “Where’d you get the guitar?”

Gert wiped her glasses with her sleeve. “It’s mine.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. Left it here a few years ago in this.” Gert ran a thumb over the shoulder strap. “Won it in a contest.”

“Did you come here a lot?”

“All the time,” Gert said, her voice barely above a whisper. Thunder rolled overhead, and a fresh sheet of rain dropped onto them. Alex hardly noticed, to be honest. He was already soaked to his toes.

“Must’ve been nice,” Alex murmured. He wondered what it must’ve been like to have a place like this to escape to.

“Yeah.” Gert slowed as they entered the tree line, both of them becoming more cautious as they picked their way through branches and rocks. “Man, nobody’s touched this property in years.”

“I’ve never even heard of this observatory,” Alex agreed. “Was it ever open to the public?”

“No, it was privately owned. I think the guy died or moved away or something, and his house just sits here now. Can you hold this?” Gert asked, shoving the guitar and her trash bag into his hands again, and he took it before his thoughts had a chance to catch up; Gert began removing her wet flannel from her arms.

“Wait,” Alex slowed. “There’s a house here?”

“Not anymore.” Gert shook her head, spraying water droplets. She pushed her glasses up her nose and added, “There was a big earthquake and people said his house got torn up.”

“Hmm.” Alex felt the beginnings of an idea spark in the back of his brain. “Do you know where the house is?”

“Sure, it’s—” Gert stopped, suddenly quiet, and when Alex turned around to look, he could see why. She’d slipped and fallen through what _had_ been an inconspicuous mixture of mud and leaves, that turned out to be a hole in the ground, leading to God knows where. Alex poked his head down and saw her, less than ten feet below, lying on a _lot_ of soft mud, but he definitely also saw tile.

“Are you okay?” He shouted. Gert winced.

“I fell, I’m not deaf.” She sat up. Her sarcasm was still intact, at least. “I think I’m okay, just got the wind knocked out of me or something. _Shit_ ,” she said, touching her cheek and coming up bloody. “Broken glass down here. And I think I did something to my ankle.”

“Can you stand?” Alex frowned. Gert stood, slowly, carefully, her movements wobbly. But she stood, and Alex blew out a breath of relief. “Are you bleeding anywhere else? Is it bad?”

“I mean,” Gert winced. “My arm, I think. Not bad, though.”

Alex nodded. As long as nothing was too deep, they would manage. “Where are you?”

“I think this is…” He could see her squint from up there. “Griffith’s kitchen, judging by the tile.”

“His _kitchen_?” Alex couldn’t stop the incredulity in his voice. Gert looked up at him, annoyed, but quickly looked back down when the rain splashed onto her face.

“ _Yeah_. I was about to tell you Griffith’s house was underground, but then…” Gert made a wide gesture to her surroundings.

“Can you get out?” Alex asked. Gert shrugged.

“Uh, I don’t—I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to go get Karolina?”

“Why would I—oh. Um, maybe? Let me poke around a little.”

Alex watched as Gert picked herself up and hobbled around a little. He squinted, sticking his head further down the hole and—to his surprise—the house looked pretty intact. Like, sure, one of the kitchen walls was cracked all the way down and mud filled a good third of the room, but hey, they couldn’t really be picky. Broken glass and dirt covered the rest of the visible floor. Alex could make out a fridge tipped over, and possibly a door, but the only light was from the hole in the ceiling that Gert had fallen through.

“Uh, yeah, I don’t think I can get back up,” Gert said from somewhere beneath. Alex opened his mouth to respond, but suddenly, Old Lace appeared. She scared the shit out of Alex every time, with her being a _dinosaur_ at all, but she was pretty cool. She never tried to bite any of their faces off, so Alex couldn’t hold that against her.

Gert broke into a wide grin at the sight of her pet. “Hey, girl!”

Old Lace made a cooing sound.

“No, I know, but I’m stuck right now. Can you go get the others? Can you find Karolina and Molly and Chase and Nico?”

Old Lace warbled and blew out a breath, but she turned around and almost knocked Alex into the hole with her tail. Alex stumbled backwards, a little frantic, not wanting to faceplant into the mud beneath which was _completely_ understandable.

“Is she gonna go find them now?”

Gert shrugged. “I don’t know. Is there any way you can get down?”

“Not unless I jump,” Alex said, and his stomach twisted at the thought.

“It’s like… eight feet. I don’t think you’ll break anything.”

“Your guitar,” Alex said, suddenly remembering the guitar and the trash bag he was holding. “I don’t want to break it.”

Gert mouth twisted nervously. “Can you toss it?”

“I don’t want to break it—can you just lean up and I’ll lean down really far and drop it?”

Gert’s eyes widened a little but she nodded. “This thing means a lot to me, you know.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Alex squatted down to lie down in the mud and stick his arms through the hole. Gert positioned herself to catch it.

Alex dropped the guitar. Gert caught it.

They both let out sighs of relief.

“Now drop your ass down here,” Gert ordered, slinging the case over her shoulder. Alex dropped the trash bag, but felt much more hesitant about dropping his own body. Gert frowned at the bag.

“Is there any way I can slide?” He asked nervously. Gert shook her head.

“Stupid hole is in the middle of the ceiling.”

Alex pressed his lips together. “I don’t want to jump.”

“Suit yourself,” Gert shrugged, and started hobbling around. “It’s kinda dark down here, but dry, at least.”

Alex leaned over, propping himself on his elbows. The mud sank into his already corpse-cold skin. “What can you see?”

“Uhh… it looks like this place is pretty intact, for the most part. Dude, this Griffith was like, _rich_ . He lived by himself but he had like, a twelve bedroom house and _at least_ ten bathrooms, like, two kitchens, I _know_ he had a pool—” Gert paused as she ran a hand over the fridge that was on its side. “I was _obsessed_ with this property when I was little, cause we’d come here all the time. Not _here_ , like, the actual observatory, but when it was still there, I could see it from that hill we were on earlier. Dude fucking built his own observatory, man. Like—I wanna say that’s next-level rich people shit, but considering Elon Musk _and_ Jeff Bezos exist, Griffith doesn’t even compare.” Gert sighed. “But like, yeah, I think this was his second kitchen since it’s so small.”

Alex nodded. He couldn’t really talk—he’d grown up with a whole guest house. “Do you think we can stay here?”

Gert paused, mouth open. She blinked. “ _Stay?_ ”

“Well,” Alex started, trying to explain himself. “We don’t exactly have a whole lot of options right now?”

Gert nodded, closing her mouth and pursing it thoughtfully. “I mean… if we can figure out a way to get in and out better, then I think we can definitely check this out.”

“Well, check it out right now?”

“Are you kidding?” Gert scoffed. “I can’t see a fucking thing.”

Alex peered down at the pitch black surrounding the circle of light from the new hole in the ceiling. “Yeah. Maybe wait for Karolina?”

Gert made a face. “Who knows if she’s even coming?”

“Hopefully she is,” Alex said, but if Gert doubted Old Lace, he didn’t know how much faith he should have.

“Hopefully,” Gert said in a not hopeful voice. She moved around the kitchen, a little wobbly on her ankle, peering at things that had fallen off of shelves, utensils sprawled across the tile, moldy food in the cabinets. She opened a cabinet and the _stench_ that billowed out almost made Alex puke—something must’ve exploded and died in there.

“God—” Gert said, scrunching her whole face in disgust. “It smells like the toilet after Stacey pukes fish tacos in there.”

Alex didn’t want to ask.

Old Lace returned, suddenly, shoving her nose into Alex’s hand.

“Hey, O.L.,” he said cautiously, stroking her nose. She tolerated the petting.

“Old Lace! Did you get the others?”

Old Lace chirped just as Nico, Molly, Karolina, and Chase appeared.

“Hey, what’s—” Molly’s eyes widened at the hole in the ground.

“Gert! Are you okay?” Chase shouted, eyes like saucers with concern. Gert’s blood was still visible on her face, but it looked dried, for the most part.

“Yeah—yeah I’m fine, I just need to get out of here.”

Karolina jumped forward and floated down.

“I’ll never get over that,” Molly mumbled.

“How did she fall?” Nico asked Alex. Alex scratched the back of his neck.

“We were just walking, and I was holding her guitar and stuff cause she took off her jacket, and then I turned around and she was just gone.”

“You didn’t notice her fall?” Chase whirled on him. “It’s raining! She could’ve slipped in the mud and broken an arm!”

“I’m not _fragile_ , Chase,” Gert said from Karolina’s arms as Karolina floated back up the hole. Alex was impressed with Karolina’s strength, but that could be a package deal with the powers too.

“Well, Gert thinks we should check this place out and see if we can stay here.”

“A hole in the ground? No way,” Nico shuddered. Gert made a _shut up_ face.

“It’s a house. Underground because of an earthquake, but it’s still drier than being out here. Unless you have a better idea?”

They didn’t. Karolina grumbled at toting everyone down the hole, but she eventually ferried them all through.

“Well, we can’t see anything, so I guess we just all go together.”

“What, am I a toolbag now?” Karolina snapped, but Alex could tell there wasn’t any real malice behind it.

“No, just very handy to have when we can’t see anything,” Chase said.

“Hey, wait.” Nico held up the Staff and winced at the needle stabbing her thumb, but the thing extended and began glowing. “ _Light!_ ”

Nothing happened.

“Nice one,” Chase said, just as the lightbulbs in the house flickered on.

“Oh, wow—” Gert grimaced, shifting her weight to her other ankle. “That’s impressive.”

“Did it just fix the electricity?”

Nico looked at the Staff with a mixture of awe and fear. “I think so?”

“Well, can it fix the mud and the plumbing?” Molly asked, kicking a clump of mud.

“I don’t know,” Nico frowned. “ _Clean up!_ ”

The Staff hissed and sparked.

“Guess we have to do that ourselves,” Gert said. Everyone made varying tones of agreement.

“Are we still splitting up to check this place out?” Karolina asked, glancing nervously from the hole in the ceiling to their surroundings.

“I mean, just stay within earshot,” Alex decided, seeing as no one else was stepping forwards with suggestions. It seemed he was back to calling shots.

He ended up with Chase this time, as they picked a hallway and began exploring. The wallpaper peeled off of the walls and it looked _ancient_ —fancy, but ancient. Mud spilled from holes in the drywall. There were doors that they peeked through, but most of them opened into mud or mud-filled rooms. They’d have to do something about that.

“So…” Chase opened a closet to find moth-eaten towels. “Did you ever talk to her?”

“Who?” Alex opened the door behind Chase to be greeted by another wall of mud.

“Nico, you moron.”

“No. Did you ever talk to Gert?”

“Yeah, actually,” Chase shut the closet. “I think it’s less awkward now.”

“That’s good.”

“So, is Gert okay?” Chase peered down at the floor, which had turned from cracked tile to cracked wood. Mud and broken glass still littered the floor.

“Yeah, I think the worst thing was her ankle. God, we’re gonna need a broom.”

“More than one,” Chase agreed. “Like. A turbo broom.”

“A turbo broom?” Alex echoed, closing the mud room door.

“Yeah, like—if it had like, jets or something and could clean really fast. I don’t know.”

“Huh.”

“So, Gert’s ankle? That’s it? I saw blood.”

“Yeah, I mean, she landed on broken glass—nothing deep,” Alex added hastily when he saw Chase’s expression morph into one of concern.

“We should do something about this,” Chase muttered, slamming another door shut. “Someone’s gonna get hurt.”

“Someone already did,” Alex pointed out. “If we can settle in, and figure this out, we’ll have a better idea of how to make this… habitable.”

“Yeah.” Chase gave him a lopsided smile. “We’re not in Brentwood anymore, huh?”

“Nope.” Alex caught his breath as he opened a room to find a half-buried bedroom. Miraculously, the bed looked intact, but whatever was on the left side of the room had been buried underneath slick dirt and something _reeked_. “Whoa.”

“Hey, a bedroom. I do _not_ call that one.”

“Yeah, it stinks to hell and back.”

“Maybe the others found something,” Chase said, his voice indicating he did not think the others found something. “I think this is the end of the hallway.”

“There’s a door behind you,” Alex pointed out, and Chase turned around.

“I knew that.” Chase opened it to find a bathroom, with only one wall cracked! The room had somehow escaped the worst of the damage to the rest of the house, and the lightbulb above the sink glowed a cheery yellow on the blue wallpaper. The cracked wall was painted with a mural of seagulls and the ocean, a beach, and a boat in the very distance, no larger than Alex’s pinky nail. On the other side of the room stood a shower with something green in the drain, but the toilet and sink looked perfectly fine, except for the large crack in the toilet lid. A door stood opposite of the mural wall.

“Woah,” Chase said, a little breathless. “This is like, the first intact room we’ve found.”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “This wall is cool.”

“Definitely. It looks like one of the birds is barfing mud, though.”

Alex squinted at the seagull whose beak ended in mud. Yeah, he could see it, a little bit.

“Hey, guys,” Karolina gasped from behind them. Alex and Chase whirled on their feet. “Gert found a whole untouched _wing_ of the house.”

“Really?” Chase’s eyes widened.

Karolina nodded. “There’s, like, four bedrooms, and three bathrooms, and a staircase we think we can dig through to make an exit.”

“Oh, my god.” Alex’s head spun. They really could stay here, if they could get the facilities in working order. They had enough space, enough cover from the outside world, and a roof(ish) to protect them from weather. If they could get central heating and AC, they’d be set. Oh, and electricity. They’d work on that.

Alex, Karolina, and Chase picked their way down several broken flights of stairs, through a demolished hallway that they had to squeeze through, to where Gert stood in a large atrium, sunlight filtering in through the broken glass ceiling. It must’ve stopped raining at some point, but Gert stood ankle-deep in mud, directly underneath the largest hole. Alex was glad Gert hadn’t fallen through _that_ —the roof’s peak must’ve been thirty feet above.

Two grand staircases connected onto a balcony on the other side of Gert, and open hallways encircled the room, some of them collapsed, some of them not. Vines crept up columns that leaned or broke off, and moss covered a lot of the muddy floor that wasn’t cold, white tile.

“It’s _amazing_ ,” Gert whistled. “Right?”

“Yeah.” Even Alex could admit it was beautiful.

Old Lace and Nico appeared in one of the doorways on the second level.

“O.L. got that exit dug—it pops out onto what _used_ to be a balcony, and now a whole bunch of trees grow there. How long has this place been abandoned?”

Gert shrugged. “Like, forever. Griffith was long gone way before my mom and I ever set foot here.”

“Some people think he was never real,” Molly piped up, leaning over a slightly crumbled railing at the top of the stairs. “That he’s an urban legend, made up to scare people away from the observatory.”

“Some people think he lives _in_ the observatory,” Gert added. “We weren’t even sure the house was real, honestly. Nobody’s ever seen it.”

“Lucky some old man up and died, then.” Chase said, walking over to where Gert stood and craning his neck to look at the sky. “Really handy for us.”

“Yeah,” Gert said.

“Okay, so… what’s the verdict?” Alex scrunched his nose at the mold growing on the wall next to him.

“We _have_ to stay here!” Molly said, vehement.

“I mean, we don’t have anywhere else.” Karolina floated in the air a little, rolling, stretching, apparently getting her bearings.

“Yeah, I mean, the lights work here, and if I can get the Staff to help, we can get running water.” Nico stroked Old Lace’s face.

“I think this place is sick,” Chase added. “If I can get parts, I can try to make a generator, and then we’ll have electricity.”

“I think we found it, Alex.” Gert grinned at him. “The Hostel.” When they all stared at her, she cleared her throat. “Hostel is just a fancy word for commune.”

Alex smiled. “The Hostel it is.”

  


* * *

 

Over the next few days, they moved things from the van into the Hostel, cleaning and repairing and settling into their new home. Nico had claimed the bedroom Alex and Chase found half-buried, despite it being by far the worst one out of the habitable bedrooms.

But Nico liked it, anyways. One of the bedposts was cracked, and broken glass littered the visible floor (but then again, where did broken glass _not_ down here), and the whole room mildly stank, but Nico loved it.

The style of the room was a rustic looking cherry red and pale cream—the remnants of a dark red rug peeked out from underneath the mudslide from hell, the wood floor looked a dark mahogany, and the parts of the wall that weren’t streaked with dirt were a cheery off-white. It felt so jarring, so like being around Amy again somehow, that she _couldn’t_ say no.

So now, Nico scrubbed mud off the walls and swept broken glass with a broom Alex nicked from Walmart during a recent run. She could vaguely hear Gert playing Mayday in the other room, and Nico only recognized the song because Gert had all of forty songs, and she played them all on repeat. Specifically, Mayday, which was by Wild Rivers, was a song Gert was working on learning on her guitar, so Nico heard it a lot.

Gert’s room was the one connected to the bathroom across the hall, so at least Nico had some company, someone she could hug if she needed it, especially since Karolina filling that role had become more… uncertain, lately.

“I feel like this is vegan if I just eat the skin,” Karolina said from behind her, announcing herself. Nico turned, and Karolina stood in the doorway, leaning on the cracked frame, examining a piece of fried chicken. Nico felt torn between saying _you haven’t been vegan in years_ and _where did you even get that?_

“Alex got KFC,” Karolina added, peeling the breaded skin off of the leg she held. “It’s in the kitchen.”

“Not hungry,” Nico said, turning back to her task at hand, whatever that had been. She strained her thoughts, trying to remember, but her brain came up completely empty. Whatever spell Karolina had cast on her by walking in had turned Nico into a mess—a scrambling, broken mess.

Karolina. Nico wanted to kiss her, wanted to slap her, wanted to cry in her arms and forget everything that happened between them and hold her for hours until the morning light. Wanted to lose herself in Karolina’s lips. But, of course, considering she wasn’t even herself, that probably would be harder than Nico wanted it to be.

“Hey, are you okay?” Karolina asked, and Nico looked over her shoulder again, hating herself for getting weak in the knees at Karolina’s big, soulful eyes that held nothing but concern.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

Karolina bit her lip. “No, you’re not.”

Nico didn’t know what that set off, didn’t know what she was supposed to _do_ with that, didn’t know what she was supposed to say to someone that knew Nico better than anyone else. Karolina knew Nico’s heart, Nico knew that for a fact. Considering how easily she’d stepped over Nico’s walls, Nico’s thorns, everything Nico had put in place to keep herself from being hurt again, and stolen her heart so effortlessly, Nico wondered if Karolina could _not_ know the effect she’d had. Like Nico’s whole world collapsed, but maybe, if she had Karolina, she’d be okay.

Nico swallowed. “I’m just—I’m just cleaning.” She thought that was what she’d been doing, anyways—she still couldn’t think about anything but Karolina’s lips.

“Nico.”

“Karolina.”

Nico knew her attempt at a shield was flimsy, but really, what was she supposed to do? Just let Karolina take her heart and run away, run at the first sign of Nico’s true self? She knew Karolina would, anyways—she already shut Nico out after the whole clone business blew up, and Nico didn’t blame her. She would’ve, too.

But yet, Nico didn’t stop her feet from taking her to Karolina, didn’t stop herself from stopping mere inches from Karolina’s face, didn’t stop herself from searching Karolina’s eyes with her own, hoping, praying that Karolina wouldn’t recoil from her.

Karolina’s eyes spoke confusion, but deeper than that, Nico could see something else. She hoped it wasn’t disgust.

Nico leaned in and kissed her, searching desperately for the answer to the ache in her heart, the high that would make her forget all of her problems, the sweet, sweet taste of Karolina that evaporated everything else her head like warm puddle water on hot cement. That feeling of Karolina kissing her back—that was worse than crack for Nico. She could’ve lived in that feeling.

It never came, though. A weight sank in Nico’s heart, and instead of that elation, Nico felt everything on her insides cave into each other, suffocating her, squeezing her until Nico was sure she was going to die then and there. Karolina hadn’t even kissed her back, just stood there, angelic as ever, waiting. Waiting for Nico to come back to her, instead of… this.

It wasn’t _fair_.

“You can _talk_ to me,” Karolina said, her eyes so, so impossibly soft. Nico felt tears well up in her eyes and she blinked, trying to clear them.

She wished it were that easy, wished she could say anything genuine that didn’t feel like lie after lie after lie; didn’t Karolina deserve better than that? Better than her? Someone who knew what she wanted, but couldn’t let herself be happy, someone who had self destructive tendencies the moment anything good happened to her—that was Nico. And she was nothing like what Karolina deserved.

Gert’s music echoed across the hall:

 

_Oh, I've been setting fire to my bed sheets_

_Oh, don't you twist your tongue just to protect me_

_Just scream, “Mayday, we're going down"_

 

Karolina waited for an answer, but Nico gave her none, just looked away. Nico didn’t know what she could say (anything, anything at all to keep Karolina with her)—just kept her eyes trained on the wall until she heard Karolina’s footsteps fading back down the hall.

Nico choked back a sob.

She buried her face in her sweater, sitting down on the edge of the bed, wiping tears from her eyes, for once grateful she wasn’t wearing three tons of makeup. Grateful that she had a room to herself, grateful that she could at least be vulnerable to herself.

Nico remembered what she’d been doing, now; she’d been wiping mud off the walls.

 

Nico did end up eating cold chicken and biscuits, later, once everyone had gone to bed. Their senses of time were kind of messed up from living underground, but their circadian rhythms just put them to sleep whenever, so it was okay. Nico had always been a night person, so she didn’t mind being the last person awake. It was dangerous to wander the Hostel without shoes, still, but Nico didn’t feel like wearing shoes. She felt like walking barefoot in the mud with cold chicken and crying.

The weight of her chest felt like someone pressing down, squeezing tears out of her, squeezing everything out of her until she had nothing left to give. Nico just felt tired, now—she was tired of dealing with her feelings, and she wanted to sink into the mud and drown.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option, really, because she still had shit to take care of. And, as much as she would’ve given anything for the chance to lie down and die, it didn’t sound _that_ great. Like, maybe her corpse would just lie there for eternity and she’d still have to listen to everyone else’s shit.

Her mind didn’t direct her, so her feet carried her—carried her directly to Karolina’s door. Honestly, Nico was surprised she’d been here long enough that she _had_ a muscle memory to Karolina’s room. She backed away. Not Karolina, not now, not _that_ mess of feelings she didn’t even know how to begin cleaning up. Nico turned away, towards the other hallway where Alex and Molly’s bedrooms lay. There was one mess she _could_ fix, so she knocked on his door instead.

Alex answered her knock wearing pajama shorts and Chase’s NASA tee shirt. Honestly, now that Nico thought about it, she wasn’t sure whose it was—Gert, Karolina, Alex, and Chase had all worn it at some point. The communal tee shirt, she guessed.

“Hey,” she said, her voice small. This was a bad, _bad_ idea, in hindsight. The mud wasn’t looking like such a bad option, now.

“Hey, Nico. What are you even—”

“—doing here? I don’t… I need to fix this.”

Alex’s face sparked with something, and he stepped back.

“Well, come in.”

Alex’s room looked a lot better than her own. The bed didn’t even have a broken bedpost, which basically meant it was five star. It was kind of sad how quickly Nico’s standards of _really nice_ deteriorated.

“So, what’s up?” Alex asked, shutting the door behind Nico as she blew past him into the room. Once the door clicked shut, Nico closed her eyes with it, forcing down the bubble of anxiety, the bubble of _wrong wrong wrong._ She opened her eyes and saw Alex looking only curiously at her.

“I’m—I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

That one question very nearly broke her.

“For… everything, I guess. I’m sorry for a lot of things, Alex—for lashing out, and for shutting you out—” Nico blew on through Alex’s changing facial expressions, trying to ignore what she thought he expected the outcome of this conversation to be. She had to do this, for her own peace of mind. “I’m still… I’m still really mad about the whole Amy thing, and you probably get that.” Alex nodded solemnly. “And… I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you for that. But—” And here Nico withdrew a shaky breath, suddenly losing her nerve.

Alex waited. “But?”

Nico wondered if she imagined the hope in his voice, wondered if she imagined the desire in his eyes, and her stomach recoiled. Her mouth felt dry. She remembered kissing him. Was it bad that she felt none of the giddiness, none of that _feeling_ that happened in her stomach when she thought about kissing Karolina?

Karolina was not a thought that needed to be in Nico’s mind right then, though, and Nico squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear her head and summon her nerves again.

“I… I’m mostly sorry for leading you on, though.”

Alex blinked, and he smiled a little, stepping closer to her. Nico’s body screamed at her to move away.

“Was it leading me on?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she said, stepping backwards. “I’m sorry that I never gave you a chance.” She looked up at him and saw the hurt, the confusion, and suddenly, everything crystallized, and she couldn’t stop the next words from tumbling out of her mouth. “But you never gave me a chance either, did you?”

Alex’s mouth twisted in hurt. “What?”

“You never cared about me for _me_ , did you? You cared about Amy.”

“That’s not—”

“It _is_ ,” Nico said fiercely, feeling the truth in her core. Everything made sense—the way he looked at her with almost pity, the way he’d withdrawn almost worse than she did when Amy died, the way that he’d made her feel so good but it was _fake_ , it was a lie because Alex saw her as the closest thing to Amy he could get.

“Nico, that’s _ridiculous_ ,” Alex said, his voice harsh, but Nico saw it in his eyes. _It_ being shock, anger, and uncertainty—a mixture of emotions that could mean he was angry at the accusation, but wondering if it was true himself.

That wonderment was all Nico needed.

“Is it? Is that why you never tried to make a move on me until after she _died_ ? Is that why the first time you kissed me was right after I used the Staff, because—because of Amy?” Nico spluttered a little bit, but her anger fueled her. She couldn’t _believe_ he was using Amy like this, taking the one thing she still had that didn’t hurt her—her memories of Amy.

Alex opened and closed his mouth, and snapped it shut, blowing out a breath of frustration out of his nostrils. “You know that’s not true.”

“I actually _don’t_ ,” Nico laughed a little at the thought. “But it doesn’t matter, anyways, because what we had is _over_ , and I don’t want to see you sulking at me because I won’t kiss you anymore.”

“So is that it? You’re dumping me so you don’t have to feel bad about Karolina?”

Nico almost fell over from the rush of anger, then. Who gave him the _goddamn_ right?

“ _I’m sorry?_ ”

“Does Karolina know? Or are you keeping secrets from her, just like you were mad at me for?”

“I can’t believe this,” Nico felt her eyes get hot with bubbling tears and she shoved them down. “Are you seriously accusing me of cheating on you? Again?”

“Well, you didn’t give me a good answer last time!”

“I’m not cheating because we were never together, Alex! I kissed you, and you kissed me, and then you lied to me, and that was the end of it! And I’m not talking to you about _Karolina_ , Alex, because this isn’t about her!”

“Isn’t it?” Alex’s voice dropped. Nico took another step back, suddenly cautious, a little nervous. “Isn’t she the whole reason you’re dumping me?”

“I’m not _dumping_ you,” Nico spat. “I was giving you _closure_ , and telling you that you can go make out with whatever girls you want.”

“Maybe I will! Glad to know you didn’t shed any tears for me—I just meant so much to you, right?”

It was true—Nico didn’t care for Alex half as much as she cared about Karolina now, but it wasn’t like she could just _say_ that. So she stormed out, throwing open the door and slamming it shut behind her, and she couldn’t or didn’t stop the tears, then. They fell freely from her face as she stormed blindly back towards her room, feeling like hot release that she desperately needed.

She sank to the floor somewhere in the hallway that her room lay in, not even making it to her room with nothing but reminders of _Amy_ all over. Why had she chosen Amy over everything else, chosen to be in in her lonely corner with thoughts of Amy instead of near everyone else, near the people that were actually _alive_ and cared about her?

Nico’s hurt bubbled over, finally, and she screamed in frustration. Now Amy was just another person Nico couldn’t have, another person dead and gone and it didn’t matter if she was the reason Alex didn’t love her because she didn’t love Alex either because she loved Karolina.

Nico sniffled, a little bit shocked at her own thought process. Did she love Karolina?

The silence in her head answered her, which was almost as frustrating. Nico bit her lip, and she stood up to stomp off again, or eat some more cold chicken, or _something_ , but the sound of a guitar being played reached her through her tumultuous thoughts.

Nico would’ve ignored it, honestly, because Gert was just like that, but this time, it was different. It was actually being _played_ , not just strummed idly or plucked on. And then, Gert’s voice sang to her.

 

_“They didn't have you where I come from_

_Never knew the best was yet to come_

_Life began when I saw your face_

_And I hear your laugh like a serenade”_

 

Nico walked down the hall and peeked her head into the open bathroom door. Gert’s bedroom door was wide open, so Nico slipped through the bathroom and stood in the doorway for a moment, listening. Gert sat on the edge of her bed, her legs in that classic pretzel shape with the guitar between her knees. Old Lace slept on the floor next to her, snoring pretty quietly for a reptile of her size. Gert rocked back and forth with the words to the song.

 

_“How long do you wanna be loved_

_Is forever enough, is forever enough_

_How long do you wanna be loved_

_Is forever enough_

_'Cause I'm never, never giving you up”_

 

Nico recognized the song, suddenly. Lullaby, by the Dixie Chicks.

“That’s pretty romantic,” she said, and Gert _jumped_ , looking up from the guitar finally to see Nico standing there in all of her unshaven, unshowered glory. Nico suddenly felt a little self conscious. “And it’s pretty.”

Gert blushed. “Thanks. I learned it a few years ago.”

Nico nodded. She’d plucked the strings with such ease and skill that it must’ve been like second nature to her.

“But now you’re thinking about someone else, huh?”

Gert twisted her mouth in something resembling annoyance, and began strumming the same melody as before.

“...Yeah,” she said, after a long moment. “Yeah, I am.”

“I know how that feels,” Nico huffed. “Can I sit?”

Gert scooted over, so Nico sat on the edge of the bed next to her. Gert’s movements became absentminded, missing a note here and there.

“I’m sorry,” Nico said. She was apologizing a lot tonight, it seemed.

Gert hummed. “What for?”

“For… trying to push you before you were ready. For getting in your business when I shouldn’t have.”

“Hm.” Gert chuckled. “I said worse things than you did, I’m pretty sure.” Nico shrugged. Sure, Gert was angry and hot-tempered, but Nico had known that, and started a fight anyways. “Besides, it’s not… _my_ relationship that got ruined because of that.”

Nico inhaled, closing her eyes. Gert stopped her playing for a second.

“Sorry.”

“I had a fight with Karolina before that,” Nico said, surprising herself with how easily the words fell out. Gert bit her lip.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Nico laughed, humorless and dry. “But I… I think I should?”

“Well,” Gert resumed strumming. “I’m here. I probably owe that to you, at any rate.”

Nico flopped down on the bed. “Can you just keep singing?” It felt like such a pathetic request, but Gert didn’t even ask any questions.

 

_“I slip in bed when you're asleep_

_To hold you close and feel your breath on me_

_Tomorrow there'll be so much to do_

_So tonight I'll drift in a dream with you_

 

_How long do you wanna be loved_

_Is forever enough, is forever enough_

_How long do you wanna be loved_

_Is forever enough_

_'Cause I'm never, never giving you up_

 

_As you wander through this troubled world_

_In search of all things beautiful_

_You can close your eyes when you're miles away_

_And hear my voice like a serenade”_

 

Nico breathed deeply, listening to Gert’s words, the song, everything about it. She let the tears fall from her eyes, then, just listening and waiting. Waiting for what, she didn’t know, but she was waiting.

“I didn’t tell Karolina we were an ‘us,’” Nico said after a long pause. Gert continued playing, but she looked at Nico.

“And you had a whole fight about that?”

“No, but—but it made Karolina upset.” Nico took a shaky breath. “And I think she thinks I like Alex, but that’s not _true_ , and now she hates me, and I don’t know how to fix it because I would hate me too.” Gert made a sympathetic face. “Besides,” Nico couldn’t stop herself from adding, “I’m just Tina Minoru in a smaller body, so, I don’t blame her.”

“That’s not true,” Gert said, too lightly. “You’re Nico, and I’m willing to bet your mom didn’t really clone you—just carefully curated your DNA to match the Staff.”

“Same difference.” Nico rolled over onto her stomach. “I was still made in a test tube in Dale and Stacey’s lab.”

Gert stopped. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“You won’t look like Tina, though. If that means anything.”

It meant she wouldn’t look like her mother when she was her age, which was a small consolation. If only for the reason that people would be suspicious if Tina’s clone took over her empire.

“It does, I think.”

Gert nodded, and then set the guitar on the ground, carefully, and then rubbed Nico’s arm.

“I don’t know how to fix your shit with Karolina, cause that sounds like a hot mess, but I think you need to let yourself breathe.”

Nico sniffed. “I don’t think I know how,” she admitted.

“Don’t I know it,” Gert agreed. “Self sabotage is the only thing I’m good at, it seems.”

“Way ahead of you,” Nico laughed again. “Can’t just let myself be happy.”

“No, cause that would be garbage.”

They looked at each other for a moment and exchanged self pitying giggles.

“Have you talked it out with Alex?”

“Just now,” Nico said. “I think—I think I realized that Alex didn’t ever like me like that, and that made me upset.”

“Even though you’re not into him?”

“Yeah. Which is weird, right?”

“A little, but I think that’s okay.” Gert gave her a reassuring look. “It sucks to find out someone you were so invested in never really cared, even when you’re over it, cause it was still real to you then, you know? It’s like, getting mad on behalf of yourself from then.”

Nico never thought she’d find someone to place a pin so perfectly in her feelings. “Yeah—yeah, that’s exactly right.”

Gert nodded. “I’ve been there.” She didn’t elaborate on that, leaving Nico to wonder—was that about Chase? It couldn’t be—Gert never thought he was invested in the first place.

“Were you singing about Chase?”

Gert blushed bright red. “No—what—no I was not!”

Nico smiled. “It’s okay. You deserve it.”

Gert groaned. “It’s just—god, I don’t know! I’m frustrated.”

Nico could agree. “Been there.”

“I think…” Gert bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

“Chase is _into you_ , girl. Get on it.”

Gert gave her a _look_ and Nico couldn’t stop from barking a laugh.

“Could say the same to you.”

“About Chase? Oh, honey, no.”

“About _Karolina_ ,” Gert shoved her. “The girl who _really likes_ you.”

“No, she doesn’t.” Nico grabbed Gert’s blanket and buried her face in it. “I’m not worth it, anyways.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Gert said sharply. “Clone or not, you deserve love just as much as anybody. You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Barely,” Nico huffed. Gert rolled her eyes.

“Anyways—Karolina _glows_.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Gert looked at her, all soft in her big brown eyes, and smiled a little bit. “She knows what you’re going through. Not knowing who you are, or—or finding out you’re not who you thought you were… that’s probably really rough. And Karolina has been through the exact same thing.”

Huh. Nico hadn’t thought about it like that.

“Yeah… yeah. You’re right.”

Gert squeezed her arm. “Promise me you’ll talk to her.”

“Only if you talk to Chase.”

Gert laughed at that, and Nico smiled back, just a little.

“Deal.”   

 

* * *

 

Gert sat up for a little while after Nico went back to her room, strumming the guitar again and humming Lullaby. She was _not_ thinking about Chase, not imagining singing the song to him, not imagining kissing him to the words, absolutely not. Not even a little.

That thought caused her fingers to strum a different chord, though. The opening bar to Only Fools Fall in Love. Ironic, Gert knew that, but a funny choice, because it was _exactly_ how she felt. Like a dramatic singer plucking strings, denying her feelings loudly for everyone to hear, but softly, softly admitting that she really fell into everything she’d been denying all along.

_“Only fools fall in love_

_And I fell for you, I fell for you”_

She hummed out the rest of the words, the actual lyrics rusty in her mind, but she remembered the general gist of it. The song was on her iPod, somewhere.

Gert yawned. She thought about her promise to Nico, that she’d talk to Chase. It felt foolish, and stupid, and pointless, but she might as well try, right? She owed it to Nico, if only so that she could come back after getting rejected and say _‘see, I told you_.’

Gert frowned as she zipped the guitar back up and set it on the floor next to Old Lace. Her ankle still ached, despite Chase’s jacket that he’d tied around it so carefully. They’d mourned the lack of ice together, but he’d made her promise to rest on it, and she’d agreed. She made a lot of promises, lately.

Gert fell asleep with thoughts of Chase in her mind, not leaving her alone no matter how much she wanted them to.

(But she didn’t want them to.)

 

The next day took _forever_ to get through. Alex was insisting that they needed to fix the plumbing, and Chase wanted to build a generator, and Karolina was saying they needed to get a new car so they wouldn’t be recognized in the van, and Gert’s head hurt. She could swear a migraine was coming on.

Of course, getting her period that morning didn’t help. Not even Old Lace could help with that, honestly, and all she had was the shitty tampons Nico had picked out and some Advil, so Gert had to make do.

It didn’t stop her from being in a horrendous mood, especially since she didn’t get to see Chase _all day_ . Seriously, she didn’t know when her mood swings revolved around Chase, but she didn’t like it one bit. Especially since Karolina was driving her around town, looking at garage sales, and Gert usually _loved_ garage sales. She didn’t love Karolina’s driving, though, so maybe that was understandable.

They’d already picked out an ugly ass armchair that Gert _loved_ , some curtains, some more clothes, and a bed frame that Gert thought Molly would love. It was white wire and curled to look like flowers. The lady they’d gotten it from said there was nothing wrong with it, they were just replacing it to update the aesthetic of their daughter’s room, which was _whatever_ . Gert didn’t really _get_ replacing things that didn’t need to be replaced.

“I think we still need a microwave,” she said now, over Life of Dillon on the speakers.

 

_You won't get me to fall, not even a little (not even a little)_

_You must not know me at all, not even a little (not even a little)_

_I know you wanna spend the night_

_As soon as I'm done, baby, bye, bye, bye (bye, bye, bye)_

_You won't get me to fall, not even a little (even a little)_

 

“Yeah,” Karolina said, very pointedly paying attention to the road, which Gert appreciated. “And like, some _food_.”

They’d mostly been eating Gert’s trail mix and KFC. Gert would’ve killed a man for some ice cream—maybe Chase would have the fridge working by the time they got back.

“This looks like a good one,” Karolina said, pulling the van over. Gert looked up—she could spot a few couches, a pool table, and a few other odds and ends. They must be moving out. That was good—the more random essentials they could get, the better.

The nice thing about garage sales was that nobody blinked an eye about them paying cash for the stuff—in fact, if you tried to pay with card or check, you’d get looked at funny.

They got out of the van and began the garage sale hunt. This was the part that Gert enjoyed the most, the looking at random things that nobody else would have, the tiny knick knacks, the furniture, the clothing—a garage sale was someone selling their own things, and thus, each one was unique. It gave Gert a thrill.

“Microwave,” she said to Karolina, holding up a silver microwave that looked bulky, but not so much that it was huge. Karolina nodded.

“Anything else here?” Karolina asked, and Gert shrugged.

“I like looking around.”

So they looked around; Gert poking through clothes and jewelry and everything in between, Karolina mostly just lying on the couch or prodding weird knick knacks.

“Hey, I think this is Nico’s octopus,” Karolina said, holding up a candle holder that did indeed look like Cthulhu.

“Does she still have that?” Gert asked absently as she swept through a rack of dresses.

“Yeah, I saw it on her side… table…” Karolina trailed off, frowning.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Karolina,” Gert sighed. “Really?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I saw it on her sidetable when I was over there yesterday.”

“You were in her room yesterday?” Gert wiggled her eyebrows. “Saucy.”

“It _wasn’t_ ,” Karolina snapped, her voice dropping an octave. “I don’t know what’s going on with her, lately. I was trying to be be there for her like Molly _said_ , and she just—she shut me out again, and I don’t know what to do.”

Gert’s heart ached. She knew this was Nico’s mess to fix, and she’d given Nico a pretty firm pep talk, in her opinion, so she knew meddling at this point was unnecessary. But it still hurt to see Karolina so quietly confused, not understanding why she wasn’t enough.

It made Gert angry, almost, but she knew Nico had her own shit to deal with. She couldn’t blame Nico for Karolina’s sensitivity, but it did make Gert glad to know that perhaps this would bring them closer together, once they learned to work together.

“Nico’s going through a lot,” Gert said, trying to keep her tone impartial. “She’ll come to you when she’s ready.”

“And what about me?” Karolina’s shoulders trembled, and Gert almost missed the way her voice cracked with effort. It sounded like Gert’s own heart breaking.

“I don’t know,” Gert admitted. “I think Nico would do the same for you.”

Karolina nodded, quiet and teary.

They wrapped up at the garage sale in silence, Gert purchasing the microwave and a clock, and they drove on to the next one, which passed by uneventfully.

Honestly, Gert just really, _really_ wanted to talk to Chase. She couldn’t get him alone that morning because he was busy working on the fridge, and then she’d left with Karolina and they’d been gone _all afternoon_. Seriously, she almost thought Karolina was sabotaging her on purpose, except for the fact that Karolina didn’t have a mean bone in her body. Not even a little pinky toe bone.

Gert didn’t even know what she would say to Chase. What could she say? Chase liked Karolina, who liked Nico, who now _didn’t_ like Alex, so at least it wasn’t just this long chain of unrequited pining now, but still. Why would Chase ever want to be with someone like _her_ (ugly, fat, loud, just to name a few), when he could have a girl like Karolina? Or Nico? Or anyone, really, except for her?

It wasn’t his fault she’d fallen so epically. And really, if she was being honest, it was her own—allowing herself that small amount of indulgence, allowing herself to have _sex_ with him without even really talking it out first, _really_ thinking about her feelings, well, that had just been foolish. Surely, Gert was just overthinking their sex, right? She’d never had sex before, so obviously she was going to get attached to the first dick she ever rode.

Well. She didn’t _ride_ it, but the point still stood.

She still had trouble wrapping her mind around Chase telling her he’d never had sex before. That had blown her mind completely out of the water— _never? Never ever ever?_ As much as she hated thinking of Chase being with other women like _that_ , she’d never even considered that maybe he hadn’t. Because he’s _Chase_. Chase, the jock, the athlete, the star, the handsome, incredible, talented, beautiful Chase.

Honestly, maybe he was lying. Maybe he wanted to make her feel special. She balked at the idea—as much as she couldn’t believe it, the idea that Chase would lie to her like that was even more unbelievable. Chase was a lot of things, including the aforementioned list, but not a liar. Never a liar.

Which meant Gert had two options: Chase was telling the truth, and he’d never had sex before, or… or… or nothing. Gert found herself faced with herself—or, rather, her own inability to see Chase as a person just like her, on her level, who hadn’t minded losing his virginity to someone like her.

That revelation felt otherworldly. Chase, the _everything_ , losing his virginity to Gert Yorkes?

 _And why is that shameful?_ Some small, defiant part of her asked. The small, defiant part of her that knew Chase was no better than she. Gert sometimes wished she listened to it more often.

Gert was yanked from her thoughts by Karolina slamming the brakes. Gert wondered for the eightieth time why she’d agreed to letting Karolina drive, and for the eightieth time she reminded herself that she’d been too busy bemoaning Chase’s business to listen when Karolina had asked.  

“Karolina!”

“Sorry! The person in front of me braked really suddenly!”

Hm. Whatever she had to say to sleep at night.

“What are we doing now?” Gert asked, noticing her surroundings weren’t the tailored neighborhoods they’d spent all morning in.

“Getting _food_ ,” Karolina said, making a face. “I’m starving to death and sick of eating trail mix.”

“ _You’re_ starving to death?” Gert laughed a little. Karolina was so thin, that was honestly believable. At least Gert would last a little longer if they had to out-starve each other.

Karolina frowned. “We can at least get some soup, or some Del Taco, or something.”

“Just hit Walmart,” Gert grumbled, not wanting to spend any more time thinking about it.

“Will do,” Karolina said, leaving Gert to stew in her own thoughts once again.

 

They sludged through Walmart slowly, agonizingly. Gert took the time to get better tampons that actually _worked_ for her (because not everyone used regular size, _Nico_ ), and Karolina made a face when Gert threw them in the cart.

“Oh, my god, do you not get periods? I _knew_ you were a fucking alien.”

“No! I do, I just don’t like tampons.”

Gert rolled her eyes. “Tampons are empowering. They allow women to reclaim their periods as something uninhibiting to their normal lives, and they don’t have to allow their periods to control them.”

Karolina shrugged. “I just like pads.”

“‘Cause you don’t live a life where you can’t let your period control you. Women in sports, _especially_ water sports, can’t just take a break because their period is bothering them.”

“Sure. That’s why I like pads—I don’t have to live my life like an athlete. Also, I got my first period right before a volleyball tournament in seventh grade.” Karolina made a face Gert could only describe as a smug duck face. “Pads all the way.”

“Whatever,” Gert mumbled, throwing the box of jumbo tampons into the cart. “Pads are cool, too, I guess.”

Karolina made a _‘well, what can you do’_ face and they walked on. Gert picked out some more shampoo and conditioner because goddamnit, the sulfates in the drugstore stuff were messing with her. Possibly stripping her hair color twice as fast. Gert eyed the bottles Karolina picked out, noticing the Fair Trade sticker on the bottle labeled ‘mango hibiscus.’ Sure, it was girly and shit, and Gert much preferred oatmeal and aloe, but she could at least respect the sulfate free lifestyle.

The thought of hair gave Gert the idea to redye her hair. It was starting to wash out, and Gert didn’t want to think about the ugly blonde underneath the lavender her hair was starting to look like. She left the cart with Karolina, mumbling something about getting body wash, and walked over to the other aisle with hair dyes.

They mostly had natural colors, ranging from red to brown to blonde to black. At the very bottom sat two rows of unnatural colors, under the brand Manic Panic. Gert frowned. She didn’t like that brand—they were _expensive_ and the dye _sucked_ —but it looked like she didn’t have much of a choice, so she grabbed two jars of their _Lie Locks_ color, which was just purple but they had to be _edgy_ about it.

Gert threw the jars in the cart without looking at Karolina.

“What happened to body wash?” She asked. Shit.

“I forgot,” Gert sighed.

“It’s okay, I’ll get some. You wanna go over for soup, and I’ll catch up?”

“Sure.” Gert stepped to take over the cart. “No microbeads!” She yelled, to which Karolina gave a thumbs up and then disappeared.

Gert hardly noticed the walk to the soup aisle, too entrenched in her thoughts about Chase. She still wasn’t sure what she wanted to say to him, and she didn’t know if she should prepare something beforehand or not.

 _I know you probably don’t like me like that_. No.

 _I really, really like you, and it’s okay if you don’t like me_. Ew. Not her.

 _I want to be with you, but I don’t want that if it’s because you want to be with someone else._ Better. Not great.

 _I don’t want you if you don’t want me for who I am_. Hm. She’d think on that.

For now, she found herself in the soup aisle, staring at a lot of cans. Some were on rollback. Some were not. She tried to remember who had allergies and who didn’t; was Karolina still vegan? Did she have to think about that?

“Hey,” Karolina gasped, jogging towards her. “I got the most natural, organic thing I could find.”

“Aww, babe,” Gert teased. “You know me so well.”

Karolina grinned and handed her the bottle. Aloe and coconut. Close enough, Gert thought, tossing it into the cart.

“I’m thinking just a _lot_ of Spaghetti-O’s,” Gert said. “What do you think?”

“We don’t want some variety? Like—soup? Clam chowder? Tomato soup?”

Gert shrugged. “I like Spaghetti-O’s. Sue me.”

They ended up getting an even mix of Spaghetti-O’s to everything Karolina picked out, which was probably for the best. They walked up and down the aisles, just pointing out perishable food and throwing it in the cart, only half paying attention to price tags and what they were actually grabbing. Gert had a mild thought that maybe they shouldn’t get four boxes of pop tarts, but nobody was stopping her, so she put them in the basket anyways. The only thing that _actually_ brought her into the moment was when they walked through the freezer aisle on the way to the checkout, and Gert stopped in her tracks.

“Breyer’s makes gelato now?” She asked, feeling like an echo. Karolina’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t even care if the fridge is fixed, I’m _getting_ this,” Gert said, grabbing the raspberry cheesecake flavor and plopping it down on top of the toilet paper. Karolina smiled a little and shook her head, but said nothing.

They paid and left uneventfully, Gert breathing out a large sigh of relief at that. Nico’s recounting of them getting spotted last time they went to Walmart wasn’t something Gert wanted to relive.

 

When they got back to the Hostel, finally, Gert could’ve cried. Evening was setting in, and she’d wasted her _whole day_ with Karolina. They’d picked around in a scrapyard after Walmart, looking for anything that might be useful to Chase or Alex, and ended up toting home a bunch of thick cables and metal scraps that weren’t rusted or bent beyond use.

Gert had to spend another hour figuring out where to put away groceries and bath things, because Karolina immediately retired to her room to ‘recharge.’ She still had no idea where Chase was, but he wasn’t fixing the fridge, because it was working and he was nowhere to be seen.

Old Lace came in, though, and curled up nearby, so that Gert wouldn’t be alone. It was sweet, and made Gert feel a little bit better as she put away the thirty cans of Spaghetti-O’s she bought.

Chase had fixed the cabinets, too, which was nice. At least they could hold everything now.

Gert found herself in her thoughts once again, still trying to decide what she was going to say to Chase. Maybe she shouldn’t decide at all, and be spontaneous? She knew how well that would go—the words ‘I’ll drink it’ after Chase offered to pay for coffee still rang in her ears at night, evidence of Gert’s _well shit say something_ mechanism. Gert was someone who should never be left to spontaneity, and she knew it, which was why she planned _everything_. Including this.

So now, Gert frowned, putting away Karolina’s lime tortilla chips, figuring out how in the hell to encapsulate all of her feelings in one monologue. Part of her problem was that she didn’t _know_ her own feelings, so how in the hell was she supposed to verbalize them?

She liked Chase—she knew that much. She wanted him to like her back, but realistically, she was okay with that not being the case (okay with being a strong term, but she knew she _would_ be okay, eventually). She still hadn’t sorted out her feelings about their sex, so she should probably just avoid that altogether. Not even mention it. Because how do you tell someone you might have a crush on them, but you’ve already seen their dick?

Gert mused over herself as she placed a jar of salsa into the fridge. She was being ridiculous, of course she knew that. Honestly, she’d rather not talk to Chase at all (because she liked to keep all her emotions _right here_ and then one day, she’d die), but she had _promised_ Nico. And hey, looking at the shit Nico had to deal with, Gert figured this would be a breeze.

When all the groceries were put away, Gert stuffed all the plastic bags into each other (because _recycling_ ) and hung up the one with all the others in it on the fridge. Now, she was only left with the two jars of hair dye on the table that Karolina had picked out at a garage sale earlier. She might as well get started.

Gert spent the next hour and a half playing guitar with a Walmart bag and purple dye underneath it, oozing into her hair. She’d forgotten to get gloves, so now her hands were just purple. It was kinda frustrating, but she’d accepted it.

Old Lace was willing to listen, so Gert lay on her back, her head on Old Lace’s side, and just vented aloud.

“I don’t know what to do, O.L.. I mean, I really like him?”

Old Lace grunted in response.

“I just… he probably doesn’t like me back, you know? And I don’t even know what I’ll do if he does, honestly, because I haven’t even _thought_ about that—it just feels too weird and unrealistic.”

Old Lace hummed. Gert sighed and pressed a kiss to her nose.

“I love you, girl.”

Gert got up and showered, washing out the extra dye and feeling like the One Eyed, One Horned, Flying Purple People Eater. Huh. Maybe they should get Karolina a fuzzy dress and she could fly around with that on. Also, the water was hot, which meant _someone_ had fixed the plumbing, be it Chase and his tool kit, or Nico and her magic staff. Gert was still convinced the Staff was magic, anyhow—science like that just felt too weird. Gert could accept magic as a reasonable explanation for the things she’d seen Nico do, but science? Then she had to think about how the Staff responded to her neurons, and how it had to be able to manipulate matter around it, and it made Gert’s head hurt. She never did too well in science, anyways—preferring instead things more fluid and bendable, like English and politics. At least in English class she could argue her point, but in science you were either right or you weren’t.

Gert turned off the shower and dried off, thankful that Karolina had remembered towels at the very last second before they’d checked out. She examined the clothes she’d laid out for herself—since it was evening, she’d just picked a pair of loose grey pants and a cozy green sweater. No bra.

Hm. Bad idea if she was going to try and catch Chase before he went to bed. She walked back into her room, very glad the only thing between the bathroom and her bedroom was a single door, and picked out the bra Nico had gotten her at the thrift store that fit surprisingly well—not to mention being a _very_ nice, chocolatey brown. Gert would remember to thank Nico in the future for that.

Now, though, Gert wasn’t sure what the hour was, but it was late. She wanted to crawl under her covers and go to sleep (in a bed! Gert was still marvelling at having a bed again), but she _had_ wanted to catch Chase, so she sighed, loudly, and looked at Old Lace.

“Stay here,” she said. Pointedly. Old Lace huffed and rolled over, so Gert could only assume that meant agreement. Gert rolled her eyes and left her room, closing her door quietly behind her.

Gert’s feet carried her to Chase’s room, but she hardly noticed. Her heart beat faster and faster with every step, imagining every possible way he could reject her, every possible way she could screw up what she wanted to say (and she _still_ hadn’t decided what that was), every possible way this could end horribly and Gert would feel embarrassed as hell about it.

What was she _doing_? It wasn’t like if Chase rejected her, she could just never see him again—she had to live under the same roof as him, live in the same space as him, breathe the same air.

 _All the more reason to clear the air, then_ , she thought determinedly, and forged onwards, not letting her feet slow down.

It was nice that Chase’s room was directly on the other side of the Hostel. He lived in the room around the corner from Karolina’s, who had chosen hers because it was the closest to the large atrium. Gert walked down the hall now, biting her lip, feeling the anxiety she’d been shoving down swell up now, feeling every negative emotion she’d been ignoring and pushing away bubble in her chest and honestly, if she wasn’t so dead set on ending this stupid crush one way or the other, she’d have turned tail and fled right then. She stood in front of Chase’s door for a solid minute, wishing she didn’t firmly believe in keeping one’s word when one made it.

But she was, and she wasn’t the kind of girl to let her feelings get in the way of dealing with her problems, so she sucked in a deep breath and knocked.

 

* * *

 

Karolina opened the door.

There, in front of her, stood Nico—sans makeup, hair loose and brushed out of her face, wearing a simple sweater and shorts that she _never_ would’ve been caught dead in just a few weeks ago, when they were still running, when everything was still simple. When Karolina’s whole world hadn’t fallen apart and her only anchor was Nico.

“What’s up?” Karolina asked, her voice gravelly and quiet. She didn’t mean for it to come out that way—flippant, tired, done—but it had, and she hated how she sounded. Like her heart had bled all over the floor and she couldn’t muster the energy to mop it up. In a way, that was exactly how she was feeling.

“Can I come in?” Nico asked, small, not looking up at her. Well—she was looking, but not quite meeting Karolina’s eyes. She seemed to be looking more towards Karolina’s nose, or mouth, or chin. Karolina had to struggle not to follow the impulse to touch her lips.

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Yeah.”

The way Nico brushed past her, the way she held her shoulders hunched around her, the way her breathing was shaky and her eyes brimmed with tears—it was all _wrong_ . Nico was vibrant, opinionated, emotional, and witty, not… not _this_. This vulnerable, bleeding thing.

“Everything okay?” Karolina shut the door, once again hating the simplistic way her words came out. Hating how she couldn’t summon _any_ words. Funnily enough, _“I’m sorry”_ wanted to jump off of her tongue, but she bit that down.

“No,” Nico laughed a dry, humorless laugh—one that eked of stress. “No, it’s not.”

“What can I do to help?” Karolina found herself asking. She wondered how long she’d been falling over herself for Nico, pushing past everything else because _Nico_ was the only thing that mattered, and Karolina would’ve moved the stars in that moment if it would bring _her_ Nico—the vibrant, full of life one—back to her.

“I don’t—I…” Nico looked at her, then, their eyes meeting. Karolina could’ve sworn the temperature of the room changed, but if it went up or down, she couldn’t tell. All she could know was that Nico was looking at her _like that_ , and Karolina walked over to her unthinkingly. She pulled Nico into a tight embrace, tangling her hands in Nico’s hair.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Hey. It’s…” She was going to say _“It’s okay,”_ but she remembered Nico saying it wasn’t, and changed tactics. “It’ll be okay.”

Nico nodded, silent, her hands brought up to her chest, her fingers curling into Karolina’s shirt beneath her collarbone. Karolina stroked Nico’s hair. At least Nico wasn’t pushing her away, like she had been. Karolina didn’t know what had changed, but she knew that as long as Nico would let her, she would be there for her, until both of them were long faded into dust in the Earth—what else could she do? Just leave Nico by herself?

Karolina couldn’t do that—not when Karolina needed Nico like air. She didn’t know when Nico had become the reason for her heart beating, but she knew now that if she tried to untangle herself from Nico, she, too, would die.

 

* * *

 

Chase couldn’t believe Gert was standing in his doorway, freshly dyed hair pulled back in a wet ponytail, wearing pajamas and an unreadable expression. She smiled nervously. He couldn’t stop his heart from fluttering.

“Hey,” she said, her voice shaky, but she was honestly pretty good at smoothing herself over to resemble normalcy. If he didn’t know her, he’d think she was perfectly fine—but the way her eyes flickered to the room behind him, the way she stood with her feet just slightly too close together to be a relaxed stance, the way her hand traced circles on her other wrist—all of her subtle body language practically cried out _discomfort._

“Hey. You okay?”

Gert shifted her weight to her other leg. “Yeah—yeah, my ankle’s better today, and my face is healing up pretty okay.”

“Not what I meant.” Chase frowned. “But yeah, your ankle’s okay? That’s good.”

“Yeah, I mean, I walked all over today and barely noticed.”

“Barely noticing is still noticing.”

Gert looked away. “I’m fine.”

“I know you are,” Chase said. “I’m just worried about you.”

“I know,” Gert said, still not looking at him. “Can… can I come in?”

“Sure, sorry.” Chase stepped back and allowed Gert to walk past him, into his room. He shut the door behind her. “What’s up?”

“I need to talk to you,” Gert said, a hint of desperation underneath her anxious tone. It piqued Chase’s interest.

“We’re talking,” he said, hoping a joke might ease her tension. It didn’t.

“Yeah—I mean, like, I need to talk about _us_.”

 

* * *

 

Nico’s tears slowed, soon, and her shoulders stopped trembling so much. Karolina rubbed her hand on Nico’s back, in circles, until Nico pulled away from her to look at her again.

“I’m sorry,” Nico said, her eyes still teary but steeled with some determination that hadn’t been there before. “I’m sorry for pushing you away, and I’m sorry for not being clear with you, before.”

“Before?” Karolina echoed, her mind suddenly completely blanking, because all she could see were Nico’s dark, searching eyes, and her soft, round lips.

“When… when I chased after Alex. Or, actually, before that, I guess, by the pool—” Nico drew in a breath. “I should’ve said yes, to you. I _wanted_ to say yes, I was just…” Nico looked away.

“Yes to what?” Karolina couldn’t stop herself from asking, her broken, bleeding heart fluttering just a little with some small, final effort of hope.

“That…” Nico bit her lip, and _God_ , Karolina wanted to kiss her so badly, but she had to hear this. Hear the words that she wanted so desperately to hear. “That I _did_ want us to be… an ‘us.’” Nico looked away, at the floor. “But I get if that offer’s expired.”

Karolina blinked. “What?”

“The…” Nico took in another breath, stepping back and burying her head in her hands. “I don’t know, I just thought—that you deserve better, and you shouldn’t feel, like, obligated to reciprocate, or whatever—I don’t… I just thought—thought that you hated me, now, I guess.”

Karolina had already blinked and said _“what,”_ which meant that she couldn’t do it again for at least another thirty seconds, which was a damn shame. She regretted wasting that.

“I—how—what?” Well. It was something.

“Forget it. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just—I’ll just go back to my room, it’s okay—” Nico nodded, biting her lip and moving to walk past Karolina towards the door.

“No!” Karolina reached out her hand to stop her. “I don’t—I don’t hate you.”

And it was true. How could she?

Nico twisted her mouth into a doubtful frown. “You… you don’t?”

“I… I could never.”

 

* * *

 

Chase wondered if he’d heard her correctly. “Us?”

“Well—not like… not like _‘us,’_ cause we’re not an ‘us,’” Gert took in a breath. “But—yeah. Us.”

“Okay…” Chase rolled that in his brain—or tried to, anyways. The idea of Gert approaching him about this was so _insane_ that Chase half expected to wake up any second. “What—what do you want to—”

“I need to, um—” Gert brushed a stray hair out of her face. “I think I need to say something, and then I’ll just—I’ll leave you alone, I guess, after that, but I—I need you to hear this first.”

Chase swallowed. “Okay,” he whispered, unable to form any other words.

“I…” Gert shut her mouth shut, breathed, and opened it again. “I, um—I just want to know how you feel, Chase. I guess. Because—because I know how _I_ feel, and I’ve been, like, really scared about it because I don’t know how _you_ do, and I don’t know what our sex meant to you—” Gert blew out a breath, suddenly looking irritated.

Chase’s brain felt like he’d been held underwater _and_ slapped. Gert just admitted feelings for him, somehow, despite Chase being… _Chase_ . And not only that, but she was acting like she thought Chase didn’t feel the same way, which was something else entirely. Did she really not know how _much_ Chase cared?

“Gert—” he tried, but Gert held up a hand to stop him, and his words—whatever they might have been—died on his lips.

“Let me finish, please,” Gert said, closing her eyes. “I’m—I—you’re important to me, Chase, like, _really_ important. I care about you, a lot,” her voice cracked on the ‘a lot,’ and Chase swore it sounded like his own heart fracturing. “And I’m—I’m okay with that. I can deal with it. What I _cannot_ deal with is if—if this turns into something else, and I just get used. I’ve been used before, and it _sucks_ , so—” Gert took in a long breath, finally looking at him. “I’ll get over it, but being used for sex because you can’t have some thin model or a hot blonde, or whatever—I can’t deal with that. And I just—I need to know that that’s not what it was, or—or at least pretend it wasn’t, I guess. I don’t—I don’t know if I want to know.”

If Chase felt like he’d been slapped before, he felt like his head had been yanked off his body and punted five hundred yards, now. He wanted to lie down and process Gert’s words forever—even if he did, he probably wouldn’t be any closer to fully comprehending what she’d said. Gert had really come to his room in the middle of the night, delivered the most flooring speech he’d ever heard, and just expected him to formulate a response right away?

And then, she was just _looking_ at him, with those big brown eyes that saw him all laid out like she’d never seen anything else, but there was no pity—only a look of acceptance. A look of waiting. And Chase hadn’t the faintest idea of what to say.

 

* * *

 

Nico nodded, once, to herself. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Karolina repeated, suddenly unsure of where the conversation was headed next.

“You sure?” Nico shifted her weight. “I mean, like, I wouldn’t blame you or anything.”

“I don’t,” Karolina offered what she wanted to be a reassuring smile, but probably showed as an impatient and tense one. “I literally—I _can’t_ , Nico, you’re—” _perfect and incredible and I love you so much and I could never hate you because how, how do you hate the air you breathe?_ “Unhateable.”

“Never heard that before,” Nico cocked her head. “Seriously—I’ve heard a lot of things lately, including just deadass _being_ my mom, but unhateable is a new one.”

“It’s true,” Karolina said, smiling a little. “I can’t hate you.”

“Even though I’m not even really a person, and that I left you emotionally hanging for several days on end and you probably think I’m a cheating liar?”

The words felt like a slap to Karolina’s face. “That’s not—you can’t _control_ being a… you can’t control the fact that you’re just not who you thought you were. You kissed me, knowing I do _this,_ ” and at that Karolina gestured to her glowing legs. “As for the whole cheating thing,” Karolina smiled a little sadly. “You apologized. And you can go back to Alex, if you want. I don’t blame you, either.”

“What?” It was Nico’s turn to blink and say _‘what,’_ now. “Alex?”

“Yeah, I mean—I don’t know, I just thought—” Karolina put her face in her hands.

“Karolina, oh my God,” Nico actually looked like she might laugh. “Yesterday, I told Alex he could keep his feelings—I don’t want them.” They way she was looking at Karolina differently now—like she was something precious—changed something in the air. “I never should’ve let him get in the way, and I’m sorry.”

“You’re _sorry_ ?” Karolina blew out a breath. “You don’t have to be sorry, _I’m_ the one who kissed you while you were still dating Alex.”

“We weren’t still… together, actually, so I guess that’s fair on both of us.” Nico stepped a little closer to Karolina, closing that distance once more, and Karolina wished she could’ve hid the way she glowed a little brighter, the way her breath hitched in her chest.

 

* * *

 

Gert’s expression morphed to one of uncertainty. And Chase still stood numbly, not knowing _at all_ how he was supposed to respond.

The girl he’d been in love with, for like, _forever_ , just confessed feelings for him and embraced his rejection in the same sentence. And he couldn’t decide between heartbreak and ecstasy.

“Gert.” He took in a deep breath. “It’s never been anyone else.”

Gert sucked in a breath. “What?”

Chase’s brain still felt kinda fried, honestly, but if he knew one thing, it was that Gert _deserved_ a romantic declaration and a promise of everlasting, unconditional love. He couldn’t give her that, but damn him if he couldn’t be as cheesy as humanly possible.

“No one has… _ever_ been as important to me.”

Gert stared at him, her eyes unreadable. She scoffed, and a tear fell from her cheek.

“Wow.” She rolled her eyes, and he could see the pain behind it. “Thanks, for that—wow, I expected rejection, but that’s just _cruel_.”

“What?” Chase’s eyes went wide—what had he said?

“Really? I come in here and _pour my fucking heart out_ , and you’re just gonna treat it like a joke. It’s fine, you know? Whatever. I’m glad you feel that way.” She started stomping towards the door.

“I wasn’t joking,” he said desperately, hoping she would stop. She did, and she turned around, pain and confusion written all over her features. Her gorgeous, gorgeous face covered in hurt almost killed him.

“I was serious, Gert—I _am_ serious. It was never anyone else. Everyone else—every other girl, they were all the second choice. You were always first.”

“O—oh.”

 

* * *

 

“I was… I’m…” Karolina’s head couldn’t form words, then, her eyes only seeing Nico’s mouth, her mind only conjuring memories of Nico’s tongue and teeth and neck.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Nico whispered.

“It’s okay,” Karolina managed, partially aware of the conversation, mostly aware of Nico’s warm breath now close enough that she could feel it.

Nico stopped just mere inches from Karolina’s face. Well—more than ‘mere’ inches, considering she was a lot shorter, so a lot of inches. Karolina couldn’t stop her eyes from widening as she searched Nico’s face, trying to discern anything about what she was thinking in that moment. Nico just looked up at her, soulful and expectant, and Karolina knew, immediately, that she was in trouble—her ass was _way_ over teakettle, and she was _neck deep_ in it for Nico Minoru.

She leaned down just as Nico leaned up, standing on her toes (Karolina smiled a little to herself at that), and they met somewhere in the middle.

 

* * *

 

“You can’t just _say_ things like that, ” Gert said, bright, bright red. “That’s, like, _romantic_.”

“Well,” Chase stepped forward and brushed a stray, wet hair from Gert’s face.  “It’s what I said.”

“You _dork_ ,” Gert snorted, pushing on his chest a little. She still burned a cherry color, smiling a little. “I _hate_ you.”

“Do you?” Chase asked, and Gert’s smiled turned into something else. A look of tension, but not the anxious or negative kind.

“No,” she admitted, stepping a little closer.

Their eyes met in a pool of emotions that Chase couldn’t parse from each other. Want, uncertainty, anxiety, trust, _desire_ —they all blended together into a palpable tension that filled the air, thick enough that Chase could’ve opened his mouth and drank it if he wanted to.

Gert leaned in at the same time he did, and he drank on her lips instead.

 

* * *

 

Karolina was honestly surprised by how _fiercely_ Nico was kissing her, then. Like, _God_ , Karolina was going to die if Nico kept up that teasing, the teeth and the tugging and the tongue—she already couldn’t keep her head from spinning, and this felt like her head had been knocked clean off with a golf club.

This hot, heavy kissing was going to kill her, and she was going down in flames already, but she did _not_ want it to stop.

She only became aware that they had moved from standing in the center of the room to leaning against the door when she felt Nico’s hips on one side and wood on the other. Nico’s hand dug into her side, her hips pressing and pressing and pressing, her other hand tangled in Karolina’s hair, her mouth moving from Karolina’s lips now to her neck. Karolina was vaguely aware that she was making some embarrassing noises, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. It was just her and Nico, after all, and with the way Nico was sucking on the skin just underneath her jaw, she doubted Nico was going for anything other than that particular reaction.

“Ohhhhh my God,” Karolina murmured, her knees feeling weak—she probably would’ve fallen over without Nico’s hips still holding her to the wooden door. Nico smiled against Karolina’s skin—that _shithead_ —and moved another few inches down before starting again.

Karolina half expected to wake up, alone in her bed, and be annoyed, hot, and bothered. But she clenched Nico’s shoulder’s just a little harder, somewhat aware of her fingernails digging in, and, yeah, this was real, and she was still hot and bothered.

Nico’s lips brushed against the collar of Karolina’s shirt that she had been about to change out of before Nico knocked on the door, the shirt that Karolina had picked out from a garage sale (it was just a yellow button-up, but like, the soft kind you were supposed to wear to sleep). They both tensed at the contact, and Nico stopped, her lips now just a hair’s breadth away, her warm breath still on Karolina’s neck.

 

* * *

 

Nico drew in the deepest breath she could—which wasn’t that deep, considering her heart rate was astronomical, her breathing shallow, and all of her brainpower concentrated on _not_ immediately tearing Karolina’s shirt off. Her fingers _itched_ to, the ninety five percent of her brain that wasn’t being held back by the other five percent just _screaming_ at her to, to take it off and let her lips consume everything underneath, all the parts of Karolina she hadn’t yet seen and _wanted_ to—everything in her ached to take down all of their walls, all of the armor between them, everything that served as just another layer between their skin, but their emotions too—their _love_ , Nico guessed was the closest word to it, even though it didn’t feel quite right. Nico let her lips hover over Karolina’s shirt, closed her eyes, and forced herself to slow down, steady her breathing, and focus.

 

* * *

 

“Is… is this too much?” Nico asked. Karolina’s heart skipped a beat (considering how fast her heart rate already was, that was probably dangerous).

“Yes,” Karolina leaned her head back against the door, letting her neck be exposed to whatever Nico wanted. “But don’t stop.”

She couldn’t see Nico, but she could just _feel_ a shit-eating grin emanating from her. It didn’t take long for Nico’s lips to find Karolina’s neck again, her hands twisting into Karolina’s shirt. Karolina closed her eyes as Nico’s tongue grazed the next spot that Nico marked, her whole body shivering under the touch. Nico’s fingers popped the first button on her shirt.

“Are you…” Karolina cleared her throat, the croaky, wheezy noise that came out instead of a voice more than a little embarrassing. “Are _you_ okay with this?”

Nico’s lips stopped their tracing down her collarbone. “‘This’ being…” She trailed off. “Um.”

Karolina tightened her grip on Nico’s shoulders, forcing herself to try and think. “Um,” she agreed. “I’ve never, um—I’ve never…”

“Me neither,” Nico mumbled against Karolina’s skin, sounding a little breathless. “Are… are you still okay?”

“I mean, I’m not—I’m not gonna _make_ you—”

“No—no of course not,” Nico agreed, and they both paused, unsure of what to say next. Unsure of what to do with their hands, their mouths, their hips that were still pressed together. Karolina felt heat prickling her.

“Um.” Karolina took in a breath. “Do I just—do you _want_ to—”

“Yes,” Nico nodded, “ _Yes_.”

Karolina closed her eyes for a moment. “Okay, so then… I just… we’re doing this?”

Nico seemed to mull that over. “If you’re okay with it,” she murmured after a moment.

“Yeah,” Karolina repeated, nodding again. “Okay.”

That seemed to be the final confirmation they both needed, because Nico’s hands resumed unbuttoning Karolina’s shirt—slowly, more carefully than the ravenous kissing. Her lips placed soft kisses to newly revealed skin after each button, until they fumbled on the fabric of Karolina’s bra. Karolina braced herself for yet another painful conversation, but Nico instead just leaned back up to Karolina’s lips and left a slow, lingering kiss there, her fingers still unbuttoning the buttons. It was sweeter than their desperate, hungry kisses from moments before. This one felt like a promise.

The fact that Karolina’s shirt could’ve been easily removed by just lifting it over her head was a fact that Karolina didn’t even think of until Nico reached the last one and popped it easily, letting the fabric finally, finally fall to the floor. Karolina found herself catching her breath, waiting, feeling exposed and vulnerable under Nico’s unreadable eyes as every inch of her torso was surveyed.

“Nico?” Karolina asked after a moment. Nico’s fingers traced circles on Karolina’s bare shoulders.

“You’re amazing,” Nico whispered, a huge, adoring smile on her face, and Karolina could’ve cried of the mixture of relief and embarrassment that washed over her—both at Nico not outright rejecting her, the fact that the praise had made her whole body glow a little more, and she was still standing there, a bright pink lamp with no lampshade, and Nico was still leaned into her, their lips almost touching.

“Also—” Nico ran her hands down Karolina’s bra straps, stopping where the strap met the cup. “This? Looks way better on you than the hanger.”

Karolina could swear she’d already reached her max of speechless and flustered for the night, but somehow, Nico just kept pushing those buttons in the right way to keep ramping it up. Now—now Karolina fumbled for words and found none.

Nico smiled and kissed her again, still letting the kisses savor. Karolina could at least kiss her back— _that_ didn’t involve trying to heave any sort of thought process into her mouth.

Karolina let her hands drop to the hem of Nico’s sweater, but she didn’t even get to ask before Nico’s hands brushed hers and she threw it off, over her head and onto the floor somewhere. It was nowhere near as charged as the process of removing Karolina’s, but that might have been fortunate for Karolina’s poor, poor brain.

 _Un_ fortunately, Nico now stood before her in all of her shirtless glory—in nothing but some lacy black bra that _looked_ like a simple tee shirt bra, but honestly, Karolina wasn’t going to stare and find out.

Except she was staring, hard, because wow, Nico had _breasts_ —there was a mole on one of them, half hidden by the cup of her bra—and also _Nico was standing right in front of her with no shirt on and her boobs were right there and oh my god oh my god—_

“Karolina?” Nico asked, in the same fashion that Karolina had nervously awaited some form of judgement from Nico just moments before. Karolina snapped her eyes back to Nico’s, thoroughly embarrassed.

“Sorry!” she squeaked.

Nico just smirked at her—she fucking _smirked_ —and Karolina twisted her mouth into a wry, humorous frown.

“I stared, too,” Nico laughed, leaning in for another kiss. Karolina obliged her, too enamored with Nico to _really_ care about her useless lesbianism—besides, she’d gotten this far, so she wasn’t wholly useless.

The thought did spur an idea, though. Karolina reached down, careful not to break the kiss, and scooped Nico off the ground by her thighs, pressing their hips together again, but this time, Nico’s legs wrapped around Karolina’s waist. The sudden weight change caused Karolina to lurch a little, not to mention Nico’s surprised squeak as their kiss turned from comfortable to messy and kind of slidey, from a much different angle than Nico was probably used to.

“Warn me, next time,” Nico grumbled as they broke apart, wiggling her hips and resettling her weight. The movement almost made Karolina drop her from sudden awareness of how _close_ they were, how their hips were pressed together and their bodies were entwined so deeply.

Nico seemed to realize that, too—her gaze on Karolina’s changed, from lightly teasing to something deeper. Karolina didn’t quite have the name for it on her tongue, but she knew it well enough. She forced herself to walk, slowly, to her bed, and drop them both unceremoniously onto the mattress.

“God,” Nico groaned from underneath Karolina. “Really?”

Karolina picked herself up by her elbows so that she wasn’t crushing Nico with her weight. Nico’s eyes sparkled with humor, so Karolina didn’t feel too badly about it.

Karolina kissed her, letting herself relish in Nico’s lips for a moment. The fact that they were now lying together like this made it different. Intimate.

“Are we… are we still okay?” Karolina asked against Nico’s lips, for what seemed like the eightieth time.

“Yeah,” Nico nodded and swallowed. “Yes.”

Nico’s hand drawing circles on Karolina’s back felt electric. She shivered, suddenly so overwhelmed by Nico’s fingers against her skin, her eyes closed, their lips so close Karolina hardly had to twitch to be touching hers. Karolina found herself short of breath.

Karolina leaned down to press kisses down Nico’s collarbone and trailed downwards towards her chest. Nico’s other hand twisted into her hair, her chest underneath Karolina rising and falling with shallow, trembling breaths. Karolina pulled back slightly.

“Are you okay?”

Nico nodded, not responding for a moment. She swallowed again. “I just… I just don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” Karolina said before she could even think, before she could come up with anything else to say, because how could she deny Nico anything in this moment?

Nico nodded a little, to herself, still tracing circles in between Karolina’s shoulders. “Promise.”

“I promise,” Karolina said, kissing right between Nico’s collarbones. “I promise that you’ll never lose me.” She looked up at Nico, then and their eye contact felt charged. Nico’s eyes were like pools of melted volcanic rocks—they set something in Karolina off, changed the atmosphere, changed everything about Karolina in that moment. Karolina forgot everything but Nico’s eyes and the way she was looking at her—with desire, with trust, with uncertainty, with _adoration_ —with not even the slightest amount of fear.

Karolina’s mouth felt dry. She didn’t know what Nico expected of her, but their heartbeats were dancing steps that she was swept into, a beat only they could hear. She could’ve stared into Nico’s eyes forever, just holding her and letting the time pass them over, but they had to move from that moment, and so Karolina kissed Nico’s chest again. And again. And again. And their movements as they peeled away the last of the clothes between them were slow and careful, sweet as their kisses melted on skin, their bodies pliant and blending together beyond any distinction of self.

 

* * *

 

Gert clung to Chase’s shirt like he’d vanish underneath her if she let go. He wasn’t complaining—his hands wandering her hips and back were evidence enough of his want. She kissed him so sweetly—so differently from the way she’d kissed him before. The last kisses were kisses for an ending—these were kisses for a beginning.

He kissed her so deeply he almost didn’t notice her pulling away—he allowed her a moment before his eyes flew open, just to make sure that she really was leaning back.

“I want… to do this right.” She cleared her throat.

“Right.” Chase nodded. “Totally agree.”

Gert looked away. “I mean, like, that’s probably weird, right? Like—how ridiculous is it to want to take it slow after we’ve already seen each other naked?”

“Not ridiculous at all,” Chase said. “Wanting boundaries is totally okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay—I just, I need to think about this. I wasn’t expecting—” Gert broke off, frowning. Chase opened his mouth to ask her if she was okay, ask if she needed some space or time or anything else (he would’ve given her the world, if she’d asked), but they both froze at the quiet, almost inaudible moaning coming from… somewhere outside of Chase’s room.

Gert looked at Chase, wide-eyed and trying not to laugh. He couldn’t stop himself from snorting. Gert bit her lip, her shoulders shaking silently.

“Oh, my God,” Gert said, her mouth twisting to hide her smile. Chase had to agree.

“Oh, my God, indeed.”

“Should we like… do something?”

“I think Alex and Molly are on the other side of the atrium—I mean, I don’t think they can… hear.” Gert squeezed her eyes shut. _That_ particular noise was definitely Nico—Chase felt extremely resigned to the fact that it was that easy to tell. He pressed his lips together to prevent another outburst.

“Um… should… do we need to have—have an intervention, or something?” Chase couldn’t formulate a thought—his mind felt like it was fraying wildly.

“Why?” Gert snorted. “They’re hormonal teenagers, and besides, it’s a long time coming.”

A mortified silence followed.

“I did _not_ mean it like that!” Gert nearly shouted, already bustling towards the door. “I didn’t mean it like that and you’re a pervert, goodnight!” She slammed the door shut behind her, and Chase was grateful the sound of her footsteps was louder than Karolina and Nico in the other room.

Unfortunately, he still had yet to go to sleep, and now there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after this update, im switching to a regular saturday update schedule (so the next update will be 9-15) at the req of a few of my mutuals, dont forget to keep up w my twitter! (@pebbleys if u forgot or havent seen my other notes) ^-^  
> updates might be delayed after chapter 6! it's starting to catch up to me and im only just now starting on chapter 7, so bear with me sigh  
> also! highly anticipated chapter, definitely the longest ive written, and got a few things i was MOST excited to write for this fic out of my system


	5. under pink skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from pink skies / LANY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updates are on a saturday schedule now! don't forget, you can follow me at @pebbleys on twitter for updates (as your billion and oneth reminder)  
> chapter 7 and later updates are probably gonna be postponed, considering i still have to write them ksdfjhfsdkjkdsf ive mostly caught up to what ive written and its gonna be a lot slower going from here on out. I won't forget about this, though! I'm gonna do my best to finish it <3

Nico had a list of reasons why she thought she was dreaming, and she was almost disappointed that none of them ended up being true. Sure, she was neck deep in bliss at the moment, but like, she’d put together a whole list.

For one, she was lying in Karolina’s bed, wholly naked, still pressed to Karolina’s chest from falling asleep tangled together. That was also reasons two and three—she just couldn’t believe that she’d  _ ever  _ gotten lucky enough to have sex with Karolina Dean (admittedly, having sex with anyone was a milestone—but the fact that it was Karolina made it quite another animal). Which brought her to point number four—her thighs were sticky, which she’d  _ thought  _ was because Karolina had eaten her out no less than three times (she’d never had sex before, she didn’t really know about all the things that happened afterwards), but as it turned out, she’d gotten her period that morning. Nothing more mortifying than bleeding all over your girlfriend’s sheets after you have sex for the first time. Nope. 

So now, Nico was faced with a choice, except it wasn’t much of a choice. She  _ had  _ to get up and take care of this bullshit, which was  _ so  _ unfair because Karolina was so  _ warm _ . She wanted to lie in Karolina’s arms forever, her face in Karolina’s neck, just conscious enough to be aware of Karolina’s heartbeat and her warm body, not conscious enough to want to get up.

But now Nico was awake, because she was bleeding all over Karolina’s bed. And if she didn’t get up soon, Karolina would wake up and notice. 

So Nico slipped out of Karolina’s embrace, cautious not to jostle her too badly, and got dressed with whatever she found on the floor from their ravenous undressing the night before. It was a  _ lot  _ harder to stand up than she anticipated—everything in her core and thighs balked at the movement, stiff and sore, rejecting the mere concept of being forced to stretch and continue existing after  _ that _ . Nico hadn’t been taught about  _ this  _ in sex ed, but then again, pretty much every sex ed program basically taught ‘abstinence is key, this is what a penis does, and use a condom.’ Failed steps one, two, and three. Maybe she should’ve had a conversation with someone in her life, at some point, about the do’s and don’t’s of ‘sexual intercourse,’ but it was a little late for that at this point. Also, the thought of asking her mother questions about sex with another girl sent a shudder down her spine. At the very,  _ very  _ least, Nico could be certain she wasn’t pregnant. 

Her stellar Brentwood education was not reflecting well at the moment.

Gert bumped into Nico in the hallway, just as Nico was shutting Karolina’s door behind her. 

“You’re wearing Karolina’s shorts,” Gert said, and it was true. Nico hadn’t even noticed. 

“I’m—”

“Also, you’re loud,” Gert said, and Nico felt her heart skip a beat. Gert had heard them from  _ all the way across the Hostel, good God _ —

“I was just in the neighborhood, don’t worry,” Gert added, seeing Nico’s face. “I don’t think the littles heard you. Or, at least not Alex, because he’d probably have been sulking really hard in the kitchen this morning.”

Nico wasn’t sure if Gert was including Old Lace in her plural  _ littles _ , but she honestly didn’t really care, because the fact that she’d been heard at all was going to cause to to melt into the mud beneath her any second. 

“Where’d you put the tampons?” Her throat felt hoarse. She didn’t want to think about why.

“In the bathroom,” Gert said, but her eyebrows shot up. “Don’t tell me—oh, no, Nico.”

Nico nodded, twisting her mouth.

“You poor thing.” Gert’s voice sounded wholly unsympathetic. “That’s what you get for keeping Chase up all night.”

“ _ Chase  _ heard?” Nico groaned. Gert nodded.

“I’m glad you finally got that sorted out though,” Gert said slowly. “The eye fucking was getting kind of obnoxious—like, we  _ get  _ it, you’re horny, but like, god, every time you two looked at each other I wanted to shout ‘get a room!’ you know?”

Nico’s brain physically couldn’t process the words that Gert was saying. It was like, she’d try, and her brain would just outright reject the concept.

“You… you did, a few times.”

“Did I?” Gert hummed some tune that Nico didn’t recognize. “Well, regardless, I’m glad that’s taken care of—you were so  _ loud _ , too, must’ve been a lot to work out of your system—”

“I’m going to get a tampon,” Nico said loudly, not waiting to hear Gert’s impersonation of Nico’s squawking from the night before. It had been  _ extremely  _ undignified and meant for Karolina  _ only _ . Knowing Gert had heard that made her feel sort of… wrong. Violated.

So Nico bustled quickly to the bathroom (tripping on her way down the hallway—she forcefully ignored Gert’s stifled laughter) and sat down on the toilet to deal with the whole  _ bleeding all over her girlfriend’s shorts  _ mess. It wasn’t like Nico couldn’t wash them, it was just kind of a step up in domesticity. Twenty four hours ago, they’d been barely speaking—she wasn’t sure they should move into gross bodily fluids territory quite yet (well—not counting sex, she guessed). 

That was also the second time that morning Nico had unconsciously referred to Karolina as her girlfriend. Was that true? She kinda figured Karolina kissing her so fiercely after Nico had said she wanted them to be an ‘us’ was a yes, but they didn’t really clarify beyond that.

Leave it to Nico to be in the bathroom, dealing with her period after bleeding all over Karolina’s sheets and shorts, worrying about whether or not she had a girlfriend. 

Nico stared at her reflection in the cracked mirror. Her hair was tangled from Karolina’s hands, her neck and collarbone  _ covered  _ in red and purple marks (and she knew there were a few further down, even though she couldn’t see them)—she looked like a  _ mess _ . At home, she never would’ve even considered leaving her room if she’d seen this in the mirror—she didn’t even recognize herself without the caked on makeup, lately. The dark circles under her eyes, the small splashes of acne that weren’t covered, the lack of any sort of barrier between her face and the real world would’ve horrified her less than a month ago. Now—now she didn’t know if her walls in ruins around her felt liberating or crippling.

And she didn’t care.

Nico finished up in the bathroom, pulling the stained shorts back up and washing her hands. She sighed, pushing down thoughts of how she’d built those walls in the first place, putting aside memories of pushing everyone she loved away, away,  _ away  _ when all she wanted was to be close to them—close to Amy.

When she got back to Karolina’s room, her stomach dropped at the sight of Karolina standing up, not wearing pants or a bra (thankfully she  _ did  _ have a shirt, but it wasn’t anything Nico hadn’t seen anyways). She blinked.

Karolina turned around and Nico could’ve died from the amount of heat she felt in her cheeks. Karolina’s eyes softened when she saw her.

“Hey—I woke up and you weren’t here, and I thought maybe…”

Nico shook her head. “No. I’m here.”

“And I’m glad,” Karolina said, smiling. “Everything okay?”

Nico nodded, too quickly. “Yeah! Yeah, I just, um—” 

Karolina’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Period?”

Nico flushed. “Yeah.”

“Can you even, like, put tampons in after—”

“I don’t know,” Nico admitted. “So I guess we’ll find out, huh?”

Karolina nodded. 

“Sorry about your bed,” Nico offered. She could see Karolina’s eyebrows shoot up with concern. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it. If it wasn’t you, it was gonna be me, anyways. Gert got hers yesterday, and you know how periods sync up like that…”

They made eye contact, and Nico smiled a little. “We didn’t think about anything, did we?”

“I guess not,” Karolina laughed, and Nico felt relieved that the weird tension seemed to ease.

“Do you want your shorts back, or help with the sheets, or—” 

Karolina placed a kiss to Nico’s lips, not letting her worries start spiraling. 

“We don’t have to worry about that right now,” she mumbled. Nico felt a smile take her, despite herself. This was okay. They were finally,  _ finally _ okay.

“So, you didn’t really answer me last night…” Nico lay her head on Karolina’s shoulder, a smug note of satisfaction blooming at being eye level with every bruise and mark she’d left on Karolina’s neck. Karolina’s hands wandered down to Nico’s waist, slowly becoming more enamored with each other. Nico ran one of her hands along Karolina’s arm, settling on holding her elbow. Karolina took Nico’s other hand in hers, and they swayed a little. Nico didn’t know how to dance at all, but she was okay with this. Just gentle bobbing to no music but Karolina’s heartbeat, their hands vaguely in the places that a slow dance hold demanded but not really, them both being far too relaxed in each other’s arms to care.

“About what?” Karolina murmured, her fingers drawing circles on the back of Nico’s hand.. 

“I had said that I wanted us to be… an ‘us.’”

Karolina hummed. “You did.”

“And you didn’t really say anything to that,” Nico added, tracing the marks on Karolina’s neck into a very, very passionate constellation with the hand that wasn’t twined with Karolina’s. Nico hardly remembered most of them, honestly.

“Did I have to?” Karolina almost whispered, her hand against Nico’s lower back pressing a little deeper. 

“I don’t know,” Nico mumbled. “I just wanted to clarify, I guess.”

“Mmm,” Karolina looked at her, her eyes glittering with mischief. She wasn’t glowing, though, which made her face a little bit easier to look at. “I thought me sitting on your face was clear enough?”

“ _ Karolina _ !” Nico squeaked, but they were both holding back laughs. “You can’t just  _ say  _ that!”

Karolina swayed a little, taking Nico with her, smiling the whole while. “Why not?”

“Be—because!”

Karolina stroked Nico’s hand with her thumb, frowning. “Is something wrong?”

Nico puffed out a breath. Nothing was  _ wrong _ , but she didn’t understand why Karolina—or possibly this was about Gert, if Nico was being honest with herself—was so flippant about it—like it hadn’t  _ meant  _ anything, like it wasn’t something deeply personal and… and  _ intimate _ . It wasn’t something Nico wanted to say aloud, yet. 

“I’m… I don’t know.”

Karolina looked at her. “Do you want to talk?”

Nico shook her head. She had yet to delve into those feelings on her own, much less vocalize them. “I just… Gert heard us.”

Karolina gave her a half smile. “Is that what this is about?” 

“Kind of?” 

Karolina pressed a kiss to Nico’s forehead. Nico closed her eyes at the touch—despite their intimacy the night before, despite them having explored every inch of each others bodies, despite the almost nonstop contact with Karolina since, that tiny kiss still made her knees tremble. It wasn’t something she’d ever get used to, she guessed.

“Is this a problem?” Karolina asked, her voice low, almost a whisper, directly in Nico’s ear. It made her shiver.

“No, but…” Nico bit her lip, trying to think of the words she wanted.

“Am… am I the problem?” Karolina looked down at her, her eyes wide with concern, her mouth drawn into a small frown.

“No!” Nico shook her head hard. “No, you’re  _ perfect _ , I just…” Nico frowned, trying to think of the words she wanted. “It was just… really personal to me.”

“Us?” 

“Last night. That was just… really, really personal, and—and being confronted like that…”

Karolina pressed kisses to Nico’s forehead, her nose, her ear. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have joked about it.”

Nico nodded. “It’s different coming from you,” she said with a wry smile. “I just—I don’t want to listen to that from someone who doesn’t… doesn’t  _ get  _ it.”

Karolina nodded slowly, drawing Nico a little closer to her. “You don’t have to put up with that by yourself, you know.”

Nico lay her head back down on Karolina’s shoulder. “I know.”

 

They washed the sheets and the bloodstained shorts in the creek just beyond the exit that Old Lace dug the other day, laid the things out to dry on the back of a chair that Karolina dragged into a sunspot in the atrium, and finally, finally made their way to the kitchen for breakfast after that. Chase and Molly were at the table, seated on some crates that Nico could only assume came from some other untouched room. More crates had been set out around the rest of the table—enough for each person in the Hostel.

“Morning,” Chase said, not making eye contact with either of them. Nico felt grateful that he had a much less confrontational nature than Gert—the fact that not even Gert would dare bring up sex in front of Molly helped, too.

“Good morning,” Karolina said. Nico mumbled out a “morning” and brushed past Molly to get to the fridge. 

“How’d you sleep?” Molly asked, and Nico tensed. Gert had said Molly hadn’t heard, but she could be wrong.

“Fine,” Karolina replied, voice strangled. She made eye contact with Nico, who had opened the fridge and was pointedly busying herself with looking for the juice she  _ knew  _ Gert picked out. Karolina’s whole face screamed  _ help _ . Nico didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make everything worse. 

“Molly, where’s the juice?” Nico asked, hoping that a distraction would help.

“Left side on top,” Molly answered easily. She and Chase were playing the same card game they’d played in the hotel—Nico couldn’t remember the name of it at the moment. She peered into the shelves and, sure enough, the jug of orange juice lay on its side at the very top. Nico picked it up and frowned.

“Okay, nobody told me Gert was a ginger juice freak,” Nico displayed the bottle that did not say orange juice, but in fact, peach ginger. Nico threw an accusatory glare at Karolina. “Why didn’t you stop this?”

“I like ginger,” Karolina shrugged. Nico twisted her mouth into an unamused frown.

“I’ll have that argument with you at a later date. Second of all, how do I even drink this?”

“Out of the jug,” Chase shrugged. “Gert already did.”

“And Gert’s gross,” Karolina said, making a face. “I don’t think we got cups, though.”

“We did not,” Gert said, appearing next to Chase from the hallway that led to Nico and Gert’s rooms. “But don’t you  _ dare  _ drink my juice.”

“You got it for everyone!” Molly protested. 

“That was before I put my mouth on it,” Gert said. “It’s legally mine. My germs got there first.”

“Well then  _ IguessI’msquatting _ ,” Nico popped the lid off and, before anyone could stop her, raised the jug up and started gulping as fast as she could.

“Nico!” Gert, Karolina, and Molly all shouted at the same time.

_ Oh, my God, what are you doing _ , the logical half of her brain thought.

_ JUICE _ , said the primordial, deeper being that resided somewhere in the primitive instincts of her body before nine in the morning. The instinct that had just seized her in some animalistic juice frenzy.

Everyone stared in shock, for a moment. Nico felt like time was standing still around her as she just chugged peach ginger juice as fast as she could.

Before she could drink too much, though, Gert vaulted the table and slammed into her, knocking the juice out of Nico’s hand and spilling it all over Nico, Gert, and the already gross tile floor. Gert wiped her hands on her soaking pants.

“Okay, so. I didn’t mean to spill it everywhere,” Gert said. “But you were drinking my juice, so.” She leaned down and picked up the bottle, screwing the cap back on from where Nico had thrown it on the table.

“Well, that was a fun morning adventure,” Chase said. “Where’s Alex?”

“Here,” Alex said, walking into the room but stopping short at the gory scene. Juice still dripped off the refrigerator. “What… happened?”

“Nico did,” Molly said, at the same time that everyone else said “Nothing.” Alex rolled his eyes, and Nico noticed he was clutching a coffee mug.

“Where did you get coffee?” She asked sharply.

“This? It was canned cheese.”

Nico’s world cracked a little.

“Canned… canned cheese?”

“...in a coffee mug?” Karolina blinked. Alex sighed.

“I didn’t want to take  _ all  _ of it.”

“But you put it in one of our two cups? At that point it would’ve just been easier to put it directly in your mouth.” Gert pointed out.

“Not to mention that’s  _ disgusting _ ,” Karolina shuddered. “Who even got squeezy cheese?”

“You’re microwaving spinach and eggs in our other coffee mug,” Alex said defensively. Karolina made a  _ you got me there  _ face and, as the microwave beeped, looked at Nico.

“I hand the argument down to you, for it’s already time for me to look after the sacrifices.”

Nico frowned. 

“God, it’s too early for Plato,” Gert sighed loudly. 

“Agreed,” Chase chimed in. Karolina retrieved her amalgamation of microwaved hell, Gert drank the last of the juice, and Nico still had yet to eat. Her stomach rumbled. 

Alex walked off to the bathroom to rinse out his mug since the kitchen sink currently remained a pile of rubble next to the fridge that occasionally leaked water. Nico opened the fridge for the second time, still wondering how in the world Karolina and Gert  _ both  _ went shopping and came back with such godawful food choices. Nico spied a bag of rice that she wasn’t even sure  _ went  _ in the fridge. 

“Does rice go in the fridge?” She asked aloud. A chorus of varying  _ I don’t know  _ sounds answered her.

“Brentwood’s finest,” Nico muttered, retrieving what she  _ thought  _ might be milk. “Did you guys get, like, cereal or something?”

“Yeah. Cabinet.”

Nico shut the fridge and opened the cabinet. No less than twenty cans of Spaghetti-O’s greeted her at eye level.

“Good god,” Nico said, turning around to stare at Karolina. “Did you do this?”

“No!” Karolina’s voice was muffled from eggs that smelled hellish. “But, god, this is awful.”

“That was me,” Gert said. “Above them.”

“You expect me to be able to reach that?” Nico stared up at the bag of Honeycombs just out of her reach. “How did you even get those up there?”

Gert shrugged. “I threw them.”

“And now they’re all broken,” Molly jabbed her. Gert stuck her tongue out at her.

“I win,” Chase said, slapping the pile. Molly groaned. 

“Hey, Kar? Help?” Nico pleaded, standing on her toes and still barely being able to touch the bag.

“God,” Karolina finished chewing and stood up. “You’re so  _ tiny _ .”

“Not my fault,” Nico grumbled, thoroughly appreciating that her girlfriend was half a foot taller than her anyway.

“Here,” Karolina said, not even bothering to step around Nico but actually reaching above her, pressing Nico into the counter a little bit. Nico flushed red. Karolina handed her the bag and stepped back. “Anything else?”

Nico’s mouth suddenly failed to make words. “I—no.”

Karolina either didn’t notice her flustering or just didn’t acknowledge it, because she returned to her mug of horrors without another word.

“Back,” Alex said, just as the realization that Nico had nothing to pour the cereal into was dawning on her. “And I think it’s time to make a plan.”

“Sure. Can I have that mug?” 

“Oh.” Alex handed her the mug. Nico poured cereal into it.

“Anyways, what did you wanna talk about, Alex?” Molly asked, still sounding sullen from losing their game.

“Well, I—I think we need to have a plan.”

Karolina swirled her mug of eggs. “For what?”

“We—the whole reason we came back to L.A. was to stop our parents, or did you guys forget?”

“Nobody’s forgotten, Wilder,” Chase sighed. “We just—”

“We’re not in a position to do anything about that right now,” Gert finished. 

“We  _ just  _ got here,” Molly added. “We’ve been here for, like, less than a week.”

“We barely have a roof over our heads,” Nico said, pensive over her Honeycombs. “We still have to finish fixing this place up.”

“Wave your magic wand and do that, then.” Alex rubbed his eyes. “I just think we can’t afford to waste our time dicking around when our parents are trying to end the world.”

“And we hear you,” Gert said. “But we need to lie low for a while and get back on our feet—otherwise any fight we have is just gonna end up like last time.”

Nico tensed next to Karolina, closing her eyes, forcing down the memories of Karolina telling her to  _ go _ , that she had to leave, the EMP that knocked everything out, but worst of all—worst of all was the horrible, blood chilling, stomach knotting feeling in her bones that Karolina was  _ dead _ . 

Nico bit her lip. Karolina’s hand reached under the table to squeeze hers, and Nico squeezed back. They were here now.

“Gert’s right,” Nico said, shaky in her voice. She hated it. “We can’t take a fight like that again.”

“We need to level up,” Molly said eagerly. When the rest of them stared at her, she added, “You know. How in the beginning of a game, you fight the boss, but you get your ass whooped—”

“Language,” Gert muttered.

“—so you spend the whole game training and going on the main quest and then you come back at the end and defeat him.”

“Like  _ Skyrim _ ,” Alex suggested.

“Or, like, any Legend of Zelda game ever,” Chase suggested. 

Molly frowned. “Did you fight Ganon at the beginning of  _ Wind Waker? _ ”

“Yeah,” Chase said. “Well, wait. Wait.”

“The Forbidden Fortress, right?” Gert asked. Chase and Alex stared at her. “What? I liked  _ Wind Waker _ .  _ Twilight Princess  _ was better, though.”

“You just thought Midna was hot,” Karolina said from next to Nico. Nico frowned, trying to remember the name of the one Amy had liked.

“Says the girl who literally cried when she couldn’t date Tetra and still took another ten years to come out as a lesbian.”

“Guys!” Alex said as Karolina opened her mouth hotly. “We do need to get back to the point.”

“Molly’s right,” Nico said. “We need to regroup.”

“Actually, I’m kinda with Wilder on this one.” Chase shook his head. “The longer our parents have to amass their evil plan, the more dangerous it gets for us. Not to mention being in one place, the fact that Nico’s mom could have a backup plan for the tracker—no offense.”

“None taken,” Nico muttered, because it was true, as much as she hated it.

“We have to deal with this, and staying underground for the sake of ‘building strength’ just isn’t gonna cut it.”

Nico stared at her cereal, which was starting to get soggy, her appetite gone. 

“What was that about being too early for Plato?” Molly grumbled. “If it’s too early for philosophy, it’s too early for the end of the world.”

“Luckily for you, the end of the world won’t wait up,” Gert said. A grim silence filled the room.

“No. No! We can’t fight like that again, not yet!” Nico objected loudly. “I can still barely use the Staff, Chase can’t figure out his stupid Fistigons, and Karolina—” Nico’s heart skipped a beat, everything about Karolina rushing to the surface. Not again.  _ Not again _ . Karolina had promised, promised she wouldn’t lose her. 

“Nico’s right,” Karolina said. “We just can’t take a hit like that.”

Her words seemed to be the deciding factor—she was, after all, their worst casualty last time. No one was going to force her into the same situation again.

Alex sighed, annoyed.

“Fine. But this is just putting it off.”

“Meeting adjourned,” Gert said. 

“Shower!” Molly called, running down the hall.

“Does she know we have more than one shower?” Chase asked. Gert shrugged.

As everyone else filed out, Karolina and Nico were left on their own, Gert giving them a smug look on her way out.

“Try not to make a mess,” she called, and Nico snapped her mouth shut closed in an angry, embarrassed huff. Nico seethed under her breath as Gert walked off, happily singing to herself.

_ “I ordered sex for breakfast _

_ Texting all my exes” _

Nico felt a hot flush of frustration well up, trying as hard as she could to block out Gert’s teasing—because that’s all it was, she’d stop if Nico asked—but it didn’t stop the words echoing down the hall and into Nico’s head.

“Hey,” Karolina said, drawing Nico into her side. “It’s okay.”

“Yeah.” Nico closed her eyes and let Karolina run her hands up and down her arm. 

“ _ Are  _ you okay?” Karolina asked, pressing a kiss to Nico’s forehead. Nico bobbed her head, instinctively, paused, and shook her head. The Gert thing was bothering her, sure, but she was still shaken from the argument from earlier. 

“I just… we can’t do that again.”

“What?”

“Fighting…” Nico drew in a breath. “Fighting our parents. We can’t take a hit like that.”

“I agree,” Karolina said. 

“I mean, like…  _ I  _ can’t do that,” Nico said. Karolina looked down at her. 

“Me neither,” Karolina agreed.

“I just… I can’t lose you like that again,” Nico admitted, quiet, the words still thick and heavy in her mouth despite her saying far, far more vulnerable things in the past twelve hours.

Karolina nodded, kissing Nico’s forehead again, but leaving her lips there. She spoke against Nico’s skin: “You won’t.”

Nico tried to let herself believe it.

 

* * *

 

“It is absolutely my turn for the AUX,  _ Karolina _ ,” Molly snapped, snatching the iPod away from Karolina’s greedy, greedy hands. Karolina made a whining noise as Molly flipped the song from whatever  _ trash  _ Karolina had been playing to  _ good  _ music. 

“Molly, what—what is this?” Nico asked from Karolina’s lap. They’d been  _ gross  _ today, all goo-goo eyes when nobody else was looking at them.

“Jenny. It’s by the Studio Killers,” Molly said. She liked this song—it was basically everything she wanted in a relationship, minus the angst and pining and stuff. That part didn’t sound so great, but falling in love with your best friend?  _ That  _ sounded great.

Molly watched Chase bob his head to the music. 

 

_ I wanna ruin our friendship _

_ We should be lovers instead _

_ I don't know how to say this _

_ 'Cause you're really my dearest friend _

 

Chase braked at the light. 

“So, where are we going again?” Karolina asked. Chase twiddled his thumbs on the wheel.

“Walmart.” Molly rolled her eyes—they’d been to Walmart twice in the past two days. “Gert wants us to get more juice since  _ somebody  _ spilled most of it, and Chase wants to get new music, since all we have is Beatrice and like, radio.”

“Beatrice?” Nico echoed. Molly cocked her head—they apparently didn’t know about Gert’s habit of naming  _ everything  _ she owned. Except clothes, because that would be weird. 

“The iPod,” Molly said, holding up the green box of magical music. Except it wasn’t magic, as Alex would point out, just science. But the fact that five hundred songs could fit on it made it magic to her, so, whatever.

“Gert named the iPod?” Chase asked.

“Yes,” Molly jabbed him in the arm. “And pretty much everything else ever.”

“Did she name her car?” Karolina sounded innocently curious, but Molly wondered if there was a devilish intent behind it.

“You can’t use me for blackmailing Gert,” Molly objected. Sure, she loved making fun of Gert, but weaponizing her knowledge would have… poor reflections on Gert. 

“Sure, we can,” Chase said, smiling. “Now tell us what we want to know.”

“Or we’ll throw you out of the van,” Nico added. 

“You can’t do that,” Molly replied coolly. “You can’t afford to throw me and all my knowledge out into the world. I’d be, like, a mole.”

“To be a mole, you’d have to still be with us, and we’d have to trust you,” Chase said.

“Maybe I’m a mole  _ right now _ ,” Molly grinned. “Maybe you don’t know it.”

“Okay, mole, we are officially not telling you anything about our plans anymore.”

“Starting now, I guess,” Karolina said. 

Molly huffed in annoyance.

“What’s her car’s name, though?” Nico prodded. She really did never give up. 

“Roberta,” Molly sulked. “I’m not telling you anything else.”

“ _ Roberta _ ?” Karolina echoed. “That’s so… indie.”

“You named your car Betty,” Chase pointed out. 

“She just looked like a Betty!”

“It’s a Mini Cooper, it can’t look like a person name.”

“Betty is a valid name,” Nico said. “It’s okay.”

“You can’t even drive, Nico, what would you know?” Chase retorted.

“First of all, I’m gay—”

“Didn’t stop Gert or Karolina,” Molly mumbled. 

“Leave Karolina out of this,” Chase said. “She can  _ barely _ drive.”

“Hey! Nico, you said my driving was good,” Karolina whined. 

An awkward silence filled the car as everyone waited for Nico to respond.

“...Chase is right,” Nico said after a moment. Karolina looked heartbroken. Molly bit her lip to avoid actually laughing out loud.

“Babe… you said my driving was great.”

“We were under duress!” Nico protested. “I wasn’t paying attention!”

“You  _ lied _ ,” Karolina pouted. 

“Chaaaaaaase,” Molly said loudly. “They’re being gross again.” 

“Ladies,” Chase said. Now Nico and Karolina were both pouting, but Nico was flushed red. “There are children present.”

“I forgot you counted as a child,” Nico said. “Who let you drive?”

“Would you rather Karolina drove?”

“Point taken,” Nico muttered, and Karolina jabbed her. 

They drove the rest of the way to Walmart like that—mostly just poking and teasing in good fun. Molly was  _ still  _ banned from any knowledge about the team—family?—which was frustrating, but in reality, they were all just being annoying for fun. It felt nice, like something was finally right after the weeks upon weeks of stress and pressure, ever since that horrible night of the PRIDE’s ‘charity’ meeting.

Chase put the van in park. “Everyone know the plan?”

“Yes,” Karolina and Nico said. Molly huffed. They’d stage-whispered to each other in the van, excluding Molly from any knowledge.

“Good. Meet back here in an hour,” Chase opened the door. “No making out in the bathroom to pass the time.”

“Aww,” Karolina said, and Nico jabbed her again. 

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Nico grumbled. “This one would light up like a glow stick.”

“Hey!”

“You’re with me, Mols,” Chase said. Molly hopped out of the van and shut the door behind her.

As soon as everyone was out, Chase locked the van and handed a stack of bills to Karolina.

“Do  _ not  _ blow this,” Chase said.

“Since when have I blown money?”

Nico interrupted Chase’s answer with, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to, honey,” and then dragged her off to grab a cart. 

“Just me and you,” Molly said. “Cart?” 

“I don’t think we need one.” Chase scrunched up his nose. “But sure.”

Molly grabbed a shopping cart, and the two of them wound their way to the store, picking up things that Karolina and Gert had forgotten the day before (like toothpaste, pads, bowls, plates, etc.) (how they had forgotten  _ pads _ was beyond her, Karolina even literally said she hated tampons). Chase barely glanced at the stuff Molly threw into the cart.

“Should we get Karolina some, like, Vitamin D?” Molly asked. Chase gave her a confused frown.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, she just acts so…” Molly made a vague gesture that she hoped would get her point across, but when Chase’s puzzled expression didn’t lift, she tried again. “ _ Mopey _ , I guess, when she hasn’t been outside for a while.”

“Huh.  Never noticed.”

“Yeah. I dunno.”

“If she wants it, she’ll get some herself,” Chase said easily. “Nico and K are doing their own shopping, too.”

Molly huffed. Karolina was the most forgettable person she knew—if she needed it, she wouldn’t even remember to get it.

“Let’s go look at music,” Chase said. Molly perked up—the idea of getting to look at CD’s would’ve bored her to  _ death  _ just a few weeks ago, but now, it was like being told she got to pick out ice cream after a particularly arduous doctor’s appointment. Like a tiny breath of relief. 

Chase pushed the cart piled high with coffee and various essentials through the aisles, walking through the Crafts section. Molly wouldn’t have stopped—she wasn’t really an artsy person—but something caught her eye in one of the aisles. 

“Oh, Gert would love this,” Molly said, holding up a box for Chase to see.  _ Buddha Board _ , it said. 

“Really?” Chase frowned at it, taking the box from her.

“Her anxiety has been bad,” Molly fidgeted with the denim jacket tied around her waist. “This would help, I think.” 

Chase didn’t even ask any more questions, just threw it into the cart.

“You’re a good boyfriend,” Molly said after a minute. Chase choked on air.

“We’re not—I’m not—no!”

Molly raised her eyebrows in a  _ sure, Jan  _ face, and didn’t say anything. Chase continued to splutter.

“It’s not like that,” he said. 

“Okay.”

“I don’t—I don’t know if we’re there yet.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, maybe? Like—I think we might be working towards that, but—I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

“Are you just going to keep saying ‘okay’?” Chase asked accusingly. Molly grinned.

“Yes.”

Chase sighed. “Well, here’s the music,” he said, and stopped. There were two large bins in front of her with CD’s just piled in, one said 10$, the other, 5$.

“We just… dig in this?” Molly made a face. 

“I guess.  Depends what kind of music you want. Think Nico would like this?” Chase abandoned the cart to pick up a blue CD with the skull of something demonic on the front. It had lopsided horns and, if Molly squinted, she could vaguely see the shape of a flower in its mouth. She took it from Chase and flipped it over, looking at the tracklist. 

“One of the songs on here is called God Forsaken.” 

“Sounds hellish enough,” Chase shrugged. “I don’t know what she listens to, honestly.”

“I bet she actually likes, like, The Backstreet Boys.” Molly put the CD in the cart. 

“You know who The Backstreet Boys are?” Chase asked, tossing a Melodrama CD in from the other bin. Molly stuck out her tongue.

“Shape of my Heart was only, like,  _ the  _ most iconic song of the 21st century.”

“ _ Barely _ ,” Chase said. “It was released in 2000.”

“Still 21st century,” Molly hummed, picking up a  _ Greatest Hits of the 20th century  _ CD and putting it in the basket, next to the coffee bag. “I’ve had this fight with Gert before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Molly rolled her eyes. “And Karolina thinks NSYNC is the greatest thing since ABBA.” Molly sighed, exaggerating her despair. “I live with tasteless animals.”

Chase shrugged. “I haven’t noticed.”

“Is this  _ The Beatles?  _ In the five dollar bin?” Molly held up the  _ Beatles: Greatest Hits _ CD.

She made eye contact with Chase.

“No,” they both said at the same time. 

Molly dropped the CD just as a loud alarm wailed throughout the store, and lots of shouting began happening. She and Chase looked at each other, panicked. 

“Karolina and Nico,” Chase said, and Molly nodded. They had to find each other.  _ Now _ . Molly ran as fast as she could towards the store entrance, Chase lagging behind because of the cart.

“Just leave it!” Molly shouted.

“No!” Chase yelled. “We still need all this!” 

“Not if we  _ die _ !” Molly shrieked, brushing past a couple of shoppers who looked honestly more panicked than she felt.

It didn’t take long for them to figure out what the commotion was—four people were holding up a cashier for money. Each of them had a gun. It also didn’t take long for Molly to spot Nico and Karolina—a large, pink, glittery shape was zipping around the fight scene. Real subtle, Karolina. The poor cashier was cowering in terror. Molly ran forward to help, not really paying attention to the things happening, but she was  _ strong _ , goddamnit, and she would  _ not  _ be left out.

“ _ Guns gone! _ ” Nico said, holding up the staff, her voice sounding… different. Just like that, the guns in the robbers’ hands vanished. 

Karolina popped back up over the shelf. “Don’t you know violence doesn’t solve your problems?”

“Shit, it’s the Power Pack!” One of the men said.

“Can’t be—that Powers bitch doesn’t glow like this one!”

“I don’t appreciate  _ any  _ women being called ‘bitch,’” Nico said. 

“I don’t even know who the Power Pack  _ are _ ,” Chase said, Fistigons strapped to his hands, running past Molly to launch himself into the fight.

It didn’t look like he had to do much of anything, though, since Nico’s removal of their guns seemed to throw them into disarray. Two of them took one look at Chase running up (and Molly’s glowing eyes, probably, as she watched) and bolted for the exit. Karolina floated down to the ground. The third man fled as she got closer, tripping over himself and sprawling out on the tile. Nico made a disgusted face at him.

“We’ve been desperate,” Nico said. “But holding up a store is  _ disgusting _ .”

“So what do we do about this guy?” Chase asked.

“Are… are you guys, like, superheroes? Are you the Power Pack?” The last man stood in front of the register, cowering behind the belt. Karolina stood on the spinny thing that the cashier put bags in, and Molly couldn’t help but think that if she fell, it would look really stupid.

“Buddy, we don’t know anything about the Power Pack,” Nico said, holding up the Staff threateningly. “But I  _ will  _ turn you into a toad.”

“No, you won’t,” Chase said. “Why didn’t you run?”

“My parents forced me into this!” The man—the kid, Molly realized—blubbered. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t say no! They were gonna—They would’ve  _ killed  _ me! Please, you have to believe me!”

Karolina frowned. “It sounds like his parents are just as bad as ours.” She shifted on her feet, and, just as Molly had predicted, slipped off the bag holder. She fell to the ground with a disgruntled “shit.”

“I’m okay,” she said from the floor. 

“We can’t just take in every stray kid with evil parents,” Nico pointed out. 

Molly studied the kid’s face. He looked a little older than her—probably the same age as the other kids. He had a piercing in his eyebrow, and—most importantly—he looked scared. Really scared.

“Guys, I think he just needs help.”

The kid looked at her like she might bite his head off. It struck Molly that the blood rushing in her ears was probably her strength, and her eyes would be glowing with the effect. She smiled as reassuringly as she could.

“I vote to take him back to the Hostel,” Chase said. “We can’t just leave him for the cops.”

Nico grumbled, but she eventually agreed.

“Now… can you check us out, please?” Nico asked the cashier, who still quailed behind the register.

 

The kid’s name was Topher, as Molly discovered on the ride back. He’d been coerced into a life of robbery and crime after his parents’ business washed up, and he’d been terrified ever since. He was 17, scared, and just waiting until he turned 18 so that he could escape his parents and be on his own. He liked Marvin Gaye and Whitney Houston, as they’d discovered when Chase put the 20th century CD on shuffle.

 

_ Oh, I wanna dance with somebody _

_ I wanna feel the heat with somebody _

_ Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody _

_ With somebody who loves me _

 

“So, do y’all still have phones?” Topher asked Karolina. She made a confused face at him.

“No?”

“Ah. Shame—I’d ask for your number.”

Karolina’s eyebrows shot into the sky.

“Nice try,” Nico said, and Molly didn’t miss the way she leaned a little bit further into Karolina’s hip. Topher nodded, pursing his lips. 

“Didn’t mean nothing by it,” he muttered. Karolina exchanged a wide-eyed look of confusion with Nico, who just sighed and lay her head on Karolina’s shoulder.

“So… are you two together, then?” Topher asked after a moment.

“Yes,” Nico said. 

“Oh. Damn, both the hot girls are taken?”

Karolina’s face sparked with clarity—Molly couldn’t stop her eyes from widening. Sure, she disliked boys on principle, but the forwardness of that statement still shocked her.

“Yes,” Nico snapped. “And I’m not into guys who just tried to shoot me.”

They all sat in silence for a moment. 

“I’m sorry,” Topher said for the hundredth time since they’d all piled into the van. 

“I heard you,” Nico rolled her eyes. “Molly, can you change it?”

“No,” Molly said, and Whitney Houston remained. 

“So, Topher,” Chase said. “Where are you planning to go?”

“Go?” Topher echoed.

“Yeah, I mean—you clearly didn’t plan on  _ us _ . What was your next step?”

Topher shrugged. “I don’t… I don’t know. I was—am—scared to death, and I was just… stashing money. I don’t even know what I was planning on, I just wanted out.”

Chase nodded. “I can sympathize.”

“Woah,” Topher said, looking out the window. “Do you guys live in Topanga Park?”

“Kind of.” Nico’s voice was flat. “You’ll see.”

“Gert’s gonna blow a fuse about this,” Chase mumbled. 

“Not as much as Alex,” Karolina pointed out. “He’s so paranoid.”

“Is this Alex going to kill me?”

“I dunno,” Karolina said at the same time Nico said, “He  _ did  _ once shoot someone.”

They looked at each other. Molly could taste the tension.

“He won’t shoot you,” Molly offered, and watched Topher visibly relax. “We got rid of the gun.”

“Not the dinosaur,” Nico muttered. Topher tensed again.

“A—a dinosaur?”

“It’s better you just meet her,” Karolina mumbled. “Not worth explaining.”

“Don’t worry, she won’t eat you. Probably.” Molly knew her words weren’t superbly helpful, but she couldn’t summon anything better.

“Well, we better get walking,” Chase said, turning off the engine. Topher looked around at the grove of trees Chase parked in.

“You live here?”

“No.” Molly handed him a bag of groceries. “It’s a mile’s hike.”

“Get used to it, buddy,” Nico said, opening the van door and jumping out. Karolina followed. They divvied up the grocery bags and began walking.

“So… you glow?” Topher asked Karolina. 

“Yeah, it's… something to get used to.” Karolina rolled her shoulders. “And kinda sucks when you want to be stealthy.”

“How did you come by that power?”

“No idea,” Karolina said. “All I know is my… my dad has the same power.”

“And you don’t know where he got it?”

“Nope.”

“Interesting. You never thought to ask?”

“It wasn’t that easy,” Karolina said, a little melancholy. 

“Her dad tried to kill her and then kidnapped her as soon as we even learned he had the same power,” Nico said flatly. 

“Oh.”

Molly watched as Karolina took Nico’s hand and squeezed it. 

“So, Sister Grimm. You can do magic?” Topher asked, tone light.

“What?”

“Forget it. Stupid joke.”

Molly barked a laugh. “That’s funny.”

Nico shot her a glare, but honestly, Molly didn’t want to hear her ominous warnings about death and plague. Topher was just like them—evil parents, scared, alone—and it wasn’t her fault that Nico couldn’t see that. 

“Anyways—what’s with the magic staff?”

“Evil family heirloom,” Nico said, curt.

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“And it’s just—magic?”

“Yep.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

“Yep.”

Molly’s head felt like it was being drilled into by the repetitive dialogue. Nico was clearly  _ not  _ interested in talking in the slightest, and also holding hands with Karolina, and Topher just kept talking. Almost flirting. Molly wondered how socially anxious he must be right now, and she felt a twinge of pity. It wasn’t his fault he got picked up by an angry gothic witch in joggers and a sweatshirt.

“We’re here,” Chase said, approaching the side of a large hill. Trees grew up the side of it, but the whole landscape looked like a small wasteland—boulders rested at the feet of knocked over trees, and mud slicked most surfaces. A large, deep chasm split the hill on its left side.

“Woah—what happened here? You guys live  _ here _ ?”

“Not yet,” Nico said, ignoring Topher’s panic. Molly ignored Nico’s hostile attitude and dropped her bags, flexing her hands and reaching around inside of herself, trying to find that trigger to her strength. Every time she used it, it got easier to summon, easier to tell where it was. She flipped the switch.

“Mols, you ready?” Chase asked. Molly nodded, feeling in her bones that her eyes were glowing with her power. She walked up to the boulder, feeling the surface of it. It was heavy.

She shoved it. It rolled to the side, revealing the tunnel Old Lace had dug.

“Security precaution, when we’re not here,” Karolina whispered to Topher. 

Molly sighed, feeling the familiar wave of exhaustion overtake her. Chase rubbed Molly’s head. Molly relaxed into his chest, but they still had to actually get  _ into  _ the Hostel, then deal with Gert and Alex… Molly’s next nap was dishearteningly far away. They all filed down the tunnel, popping out on the north side of the atrium, right next to Alex’s room.

“Woah,” Topher said.

“We live  _ here _ .” There was a touch of pride in Nico’s voice. “Welcome to the Hostel.”

“Who decided to call it tha—” 

He was cut off by a very large, very angry lizard pinning him to the wall. Old Lace had bolted from  _ somewhere _ and was now growling, her teeth inches from Topher’s throat. Molly sure was awake now. 

“Gert!” Chase shouted.

“I’m here! Lace, quit it!”

Old Lace cocked her head at Gert—who was standing at the bottom of the atrium—and whined a little.

“You heard me,” Gert said. Old Lace backed up.

“So, who’s this?” Alex asked, cracking open his bedroom door. “And did you get food?” 

“You know it, bitch,” Chase said.

“I resent that use of the word,” Gert said. “But—of course they did, bitch.”

“Does everyone call each other ‘bitch’ around here?” Topher coughed, his shirt now shredded from dinosaur talons. 

“My question first, bitch. Who’s this?” Gert tapped her foot.

“Topher,” Molly said. “Also—little ears.”

“Don’t repeat what I said, then. When did you guys pick up a stray?”

“I’m not a  _ stray _ —” Topher began, but Alex cut him off.

“Why’d you think to bring him back  _ here _ ?”

Chase held up his hands. “It was mostly Karolina’s idea!”

“Hey! We couldn’t leave him for the police!”

“Yeah, you could’ve,” Gert muttered. 

“If we left him, we would be no better than our parents,” Molly said. “I thought we were trying to be better?”

Gert’s eyes softened. “Mols, your parents  _ were  _ better.”

Molly looked away. She didn’t care that they’d been repentant—they’d still been a part of PRIDE. She shoved that emotional wreck back into its box and breathed deeply.

“His parents weren’t—he said that they were evil.”

“What say you?” Alex asked Topher. 

“It’s—it’s all true. My parents were evil, and they forced me into their  _ gang  _ because their business went bankrupt. My dad said it was because we didn’t have any other choice—my mom told me that was what I had to do, or I wouldn’t eat. I’ve been running with them since I was eleven—but I’ve never shot anyone! I’ve just been there as an extra body, to be more intimidating, I guess. I was planning to make a break for it, soon—when I turned 18. I…” Topher looked around. “I guess I don’t have to do that anymore.”

Molly nodded, his story a little tiny bit more heartbreaking, but also she was starting to fall asleep against Chase’s chest.

“Hm.” Gert whistled for Old Lace. “Y’all figure that out. I’m going back to bed.”

Chase looked at his watch. “It’s like… 3 in the afternoon.”

“I said what I said,” Gert said, her back to them as she walked back down the hall.

“We have no empty rooms,” Chase said. Alex sighed.

“He can room with me,” he said. Topher smiled, a little lopsided. Molly found herself liking his dumb smile—it looked nothing like Chase’s puppy smile or Alex’s smug smirk. It was different. 

Nico rolled her eyes and stomped off down the hall in the direction of the kitchen. Karolina followed her, trailing behind a little like she was uncertain. They both disappeared into the walls of the Hostel.

“Alright, Molls, off to bed,” Chase said. “You’re weighing on me like a sack of bricks.”

“Okay. Let me just go drop this stuff in the kitchen.”

Molly toddled down the stairs and dragged herself towards the kitchen. She walked slowly, just enough to keep moving, because she felt like if she stopped she’d fall asleep then and there. 

Molly liked the Hostel—the walls of mud and old, old drywall felt comforting. Sure, the whole thing was unstable and could collapse on them at any minute, but they all needed excitement. Besides, Alex and Chase were mathematically calculating the weakest parts of the structure and shoring them up, so the chances of another catastrophe actually happening slimmed down by the day.

By the time she got close to the kitchen, she could hear Karolina and Nico’s voices. 

“—just don’t trust him,” Nico was saying. “I don’t want him around where he can  _ watch  _ us.”

“You don’t have to trust him.” Karolina sounded exasperated. “But you should at least try to get to know him.”

“Like  _ you _ got to know him? Karolina, we’ve known him for, like, an hour. He could be anyone!”

_ Trouble in paradise, _ Molly thought, content to lean against the wall and doze as she waited for them to resolve it.

“I don’t know, Nico,” Karolina sighed. She sounded so tired. “I just want to go to bed, honestly. This whole Topher business… I think he deserves a chance. We can’t just shut everyone out because they  _ might  _ be evil.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Nico grumbled. “Also, the fact that he was hitting on us both at the same time?”

“Yeah. Weird.”

They remained silent for a minute, and Molly was gathering herself to walk in when Karolina spoke again.

“I don’t know, Nico. I’m exhausted and I’m sick of being scared and running all the time. I want to just breathe.”

“I know,” Nico said. “I feel like that too, I just… I’m telling you, there’s just something…  _ off  _ about him.”

“Mmm.” Karolina’s voice became almost inaudible. “Not jealous?”

“No!”

“Good.” Karolina hummed. “You know I care about you.”

Nico made some noise in response, and Molly decided it was time to crash the party before something nasty happened in the kitchen that she did  _ not  _ want to hear. She walked in on Karolina and Nico leaning into each other, making those  _ gross  _ puppy eyes at each other that she sometimes saw Gert and Chase making (actually, Gert and Chase made them a lot more often, but still).

“ _ Hola _ ,” Molly said. She would’ve waved, but her arms were laden with Walmart bags. Nico leaped back from Karolina like she’d been shocked. “I come bearing Walmart stuff.”

“Set it on the table,” Karolina said, nodding at the aforementioned table. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” Nico said. She gave Karolina a questioning look. A look that said  _ meet me later? _

Molly ignored their nonverbal conversation and bustled about putting away the juice, coffee (Molly frowned when she realized they actually  _ had  _ a coffee machine from the garage sales, and yet Gert and Karolina had  _ still  _ forgotten coffee the first time), and other groceries. She put the bathroom stuff in a separate bag to tote in there later when Nico was done. 

And then, finally, blissfully, Molly got to crawl into her room, into her bed, and take the longest nap she ever had in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont forget to leave a comment if u liked this ! <3


	6. what we tell ourselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from old days / ingrid michaelson)

Alex didn’t mind Topher, honestly. He liked Topher’s presence—he seemed to keep people on their best behavior. His housing didn’t turn out to be too much of a problem, either—Karolina had volunteered to give Topher her room, proclaiming that she didn’t  _ really  _ like it in the first place (which was a lie—she’d been the first one to pick a room, and specifically said she liked being the closest to the atrium), and that she’d just room with Nico. Which brought him to something he  _ did  _ mind—Karolina and Nico.

The speed at which Nico had replaced Alex in her life  _ hurt _ . A  _ lot _ . And he couldn’t believe she’d just accused him of not caring about her,when he cared  _ so much _ . Even though, sometimes he did wonder if Nico was right, in some small way—that his feelings for her had rooted in unresolved feelings for Amy. Maybe. He’d think on that some more—but either way, it wasn’t like it mattered. Amy—to be frank—was dead, and it wasn’t like the leftover feelings were going to get neatly tied up and the  _ Resolve  _ button hit. And even if he somehow untangled this whole mess within the next decade, it wasn’t like it was going to bring Nico back to him. Might as well leave well enough alone. 

So now, Alex was gathered around the table with everyone else at lunch. Chase and Gert had worked together with the very little facilities they had to produce microwave fried rice, and it was actually pretty good. Gert had complained loudly about being the designated cook (something something patriarchy), so she’d forcibly enlisted Chase’s help, and the result ended up being pretty okay.

Someone had dragged an extra crate over from… wherever the crates had come from. They were still exploring the Hostel, still discovering new parts of it, still finding entirely new rooms and things in it that they hadn’t imagined before. Molly had found what used to be the garage—a large mudslide had completely destroyed whatever car was left there, and Chase had been ecstatic at the chance for spare parts. 

Topher sat on the extra crate now, Nico as far away from him as possible while still sitting at the same table, Karolina by her side like the loyal dog she was. Or at least, that was what she looked like, sometimes—a big-hearted loyal dog, perfectly content to follow.

He’d expected Nico to warm up to Topher after the first few days, but she was still as cold and suspicious as ever. It was starting to grate on him—it wasn’t like Topher was a bloodsucking demon or anything; He’d just had the misfortune of having evil parents. Alex could relate. 

As for Topher himself—he was alright. Alex liked having another dude around, especially a dude that  _ wasn’t  _ Chase. It was nice to not have to activate his flight or fight response the second he walked into a room with another guy in it anymore. Topher  was nerdy enough that Alex liked him just fine—they could talk about their weird 90’s bands or old games they liked together. Topher wasn’t  _ super  _ up-to-date on new games, so he didn’t have much of anyone to talk to about those, but since they were all on the run anyways, Alex guessed it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like talking about those things was going to bring them back.

“We need a plan, still,” Alex said now, since everyone was  _ finally  _ in one room for the first time in a few days. Gert and Nico looked none too happy about the conversation topic.

“What can we do?” Karolina asked. “I mean—nothing’s changed since the last time we talked about this. We don’t really have any new shit, do we?” 

“We have a Topher,” Molly pointed out.

Gert gagged. “Molly, if you ever quote Tonka Stank in this house again I am coming for your hide.

“I met him once,” Chase said conversationally. “I was like, nine, but he was really annoying. I remember being called ‘squirt’ and ‘champ’ a lot- I think he forgot my name- and that i didn’t like his glasses.”

Karolina frowned. “I like the glasses. I mean, he’s a piece of shit, but I like the glasses.”

“Yeah,” said Nico, “Really retro-”

“Thank you, Molly,” Alex said forcefully, trying to redirect the conversation before it devolved into a discussion about the questionable fashion choices of a questionable billionaire. “And she has a point—we now have an extra teammate, not to mention the fact that you already fought those guys in Walmart. It made me realize—we could be doing little stuff like that. We don’t have to fight PRIDE right away.”

“Well,” Chase cleared his throat. “The other thing is that we should probably know more about what we’re going up against. Like, say...this Jonah guy.”

He said it slowly, gauging for reactions. Alex noticed Karolina’s mouth tighten, Nico look away in a pained manner, and Topher affect a confused expression, all in the matter of seconds it took for Gert to interrupt the heavy silence.

“Chase is right,” Gert said. “We know  _ nothing  _ about him—what his powers are, what they can do, where they come from, et cetera. We don’t know  _ anything _ —if we can find things out, we might stand a better chance against him.”

“Otherwise we’ll just get wiped like last time,” Chase agreed. “He took all of us out, easily.”

“I mean, but we also know a  _ little  _ bit more. Maybe we could’ve done something if PRIDE wasn’t there,” Nico said. They all fell silent—she was right, of course. Old Lace had been taken out by Dale’s tranquilizer, and now they had some idea of what to expect.

“I think we should just stick to, like, level grinding. Deal with some petty crime and stuff and come back to the PRIDE issue when we have our strength and communication bolstered,” Alex sighed. He still didn’t like the idea of leaving PRIDE to their own devices, but he wasn’t going to force all of his friends into a fight they weren’t prepared for,  _ especially  _ Karolina. Jesus, no matter how pissed he was about their whole mess on the romantic side of things, Alex was supremely worried about Karolina. Like, sure, she stole his sort of girlfriend and contributed to the smashing of his poor, fragile heart. But Karolina could glow and fly and shoot pastel lasers out of her hands for a still undetermined reason. That was cause for some worrying, isn’t it? .

“And do what? We’re  _ kids _ , not superheroes.” Gert protested.  

“Also—’bolstered’?” Molly giggled. 

“We barely even know what we have in our arsenal—hell, we just learned Karolina can  _ fly _ !” Gert said, ignoring Molly’s comment. “We probably have, like—a hundred other things that can help us but none of it will help if we don’t slow down and  _ think _ .”

“I think we need to act fast, though.” Chase frowned. “The longer we waste time dicking around, the harder it’s gonna be to actually confront them when we get there. Like… sure, we can spend some time gathering what we have, but—”

“PRIDE’s gonna be way better at prep time,” Nico said. “We can make, like,  _ maybe  _ something with our powers, but they’re our  _ parents _ .”

“They have time, resources, friends—meanwhile, we have a weirdly strong fourteen year old girl, a teenager that can fly and glow rainbow, and a dinosaur.” Chase nodded at Nico.

“And a magic staff,” Alex said.

“And a Topher,” Molly added. “But I already said that.”

“You did,” Gert said haughtily. “And I’m not saying it again—Stark Industries can eat my ass.”

“You don’t even let Chase eat your—”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Karolina said quickly, and just in time, because Gert looked like she might’ve launched herself across the table at Nico. Molly was making a  _ ‘oooooo’  _ face, and Chase slunk down into his shirt, beet red. “We can’t do anything right now  _ but  _ take a beat—going after our parents isn’t an option.”

“I agree,” Nico said, glancing around the room. “We just… can’t do anything.”

“The  _ whole  _ reason we came back was to take down our parents, and you guys just want to forget that?” Molly slammed her hands on the table. “We came back to  _ stop  _ them. We have to try, at least.”

“We’re not superheroes,” Chase mumbled.

“Yeah—what can we even do?” Gert moved her hands in an exasperated manner.

“We’re not  _ saying  _ we be superheroes!” Alex rubbed his temples. Sometimes being with his friends made him feel like a very tired father of five. “I’m just saying—our parents are  _ awful _ … don’t any of you feel some sort of responsibility for that?”

Gert shrugged. “Their sins aren’t mine.”

“Aren’t they? I mean, we’re related. And I don’t… I want to be better than Geoffrey Wilder’s son.”  _ I can’t live in his shadow for the rest of my life. We need some sunlight up in this bitch.  _  “I want to-”  _ atone. I  _ **_need_ ** _ to atone for what they’ve done so I can sleep at night. I’m so tired of being tired. _ “I want to do some good.” Alex twisted his mouth, drumming his fingers on the table. “I want to be better than them.”

They all fell silent. 

“Not hard to be better than a murderer,” Gert muttered. “But I see your point.”

“Look, I…” Alex inhaled. “I get it, if none of you feel the same way, but I can’t just—I can’t just act like what my parents did doesn’t affect me.”

“ _ Nobody’s  _ saying it doesn’t affect us,” Nico pointed out. “We’re just saying that—that what they did doesn’t have to mean that we’re bad people.”

“We’re not bad because of our parents, but we should be better,” Karolina said. “I want… I want to be better.”

Nico squeezed Karolina’s arm. Alex looked away, feeling miffed, and then guilty about being miffed. Hmm. 

“What about you, new guy?” Molly prodded. Topher jumped a little.

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you.” Molly rolled her eyes. “You’re a part of this outfit too, now.”

“I don’t—I mean, I don’t know. Whatever you guys decide.”  _ Weirdly placid for a kid with murderous parents, but...okay? _

“Are we all in agreement, then?” Alex ignored the face Nico was making. 

“I guess,” Nico said.

“Yeah.” Karolina nodded. 

“Yep.” Chase twiddled his hands.

“Not like I have much of a choice, then,” Gert grumbled.

“Definitely.” Molly grinned.

“Excellent,” Alex smiled. “The Runaways are back in business.”

“God, we are  _ not  _ calling ourselves that,” Gert said, sighing loudly. 

“So, what’s the plan?” Karolina asked.

“The… plan?”

“Well,” Karolina hummed. “You said we were gonna be taking care of little things. Making up for our parents. What are we doing?”

“Well…” Alex racked his brain. What could they be doing?

“The king of creativity strikes again,” Gert said wryly, and Alex gave her his best death glare.

“Shut up. Anyway, I think we’re gonna need another ride first.”

“Like… another car?” Gert asked. 

“We  _ were  _ supposed to ditch the van,” Chase conceded. “Alex is right.” The words sounded like they’d been choked out of him.

“Appreciate it, Stein,” Alex said. “We need to get better at covering our tracks.”

“Yeah—and if we steal a car, that won’t help us. We won’t even get to drive it—the police will be all over a stolen vehicle.” Gert sounded mildly condescending, as she often did, these days. Alex’s mind flipped back to the problem of getting her her meds for a moment, before refocusing on the current topic, because he needed to stay on the ball, or nothing would get done. He  _ was  _ worried about her, though..

“I wasn’t planning on just walking up to someone and shoving them out of their car,” he sighed. “I think our best bet is to try and go back and get your car working again, actually.”

“ _ My  _ car?” Gert huffed. “She’s dead—she got fried in that EMP.”

“What EMP?” Karolina frowned.

Nico ran her hand along Karolina’s arm. “There was some kind of explosion at the dig site. When we… left you.” She said it so quietly that Alex had to strain his ears, and even then he doubted whether or not he just imagined it. Judging by the soft look in her eyes as she tried to catch Karolina’s eye—the same way she used to look at  _ him _ , he realized with a twinge—he’d probably heard correctly. It was kind of sweet, actually, even if it made his heart hurt.

“Yeah—all the electronics? Dead,” Chase said.

“Really?” Karolina’s eyes widened. “I don’t remember…  _ anything _ .”

“I mean, I’m willing to bet you were at the center of that whole explosion thingy ” Gert said. “The human brain tends to repress trauma like that.”

Alex could see everyone tense at the word ‘trauma.’ Technically, they’d all gone through nasty, traumatic things, but calling it  _ trauma  _ made it feel more heavy. Real.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Molly piped up, having been unusually quiet.

“I don’t know if I can get it running again, but I can try,” Chase offered. “I’ve got some extra parts from the crushed SUV in the garage. And I’ve been messing with the Fistigons—trying to get them to balance right.”

Alex nodded. “Good.” Remembering the buddy system that years of Boy Scouts drilled into his brain, he asked, “Who wants to go outside with him, help out?”

All hands shot into the air. Alex sighed.

“We haven’t been outside in  _ forever _ ,” Molly whined. “I hate breathing mud air.”

Gert raised a brow. “You were  _ so  _ excited to move in.”

“Yeah, like, a week ago. Now it’s boring.”

“Molly, why don’t you stay here with me and we can explore some more?” Karolina asked. “There was some collapsed staircase I wanted to check out by Chase’s room.”

Molly pouted, but didn’t object. Nico eyed Topher and said, “I’m gonna stay back, too. Finish cleaning all the mud out of my room, maybe redecorate and shit.”

Alex guessed that that was the end of the meeting—Nico stood up and walked off to her room, barely pausing to dump her bowl in the designated bucket for washing dishes, tugging Karolina by the sleeve after her. Karolina spared Alex a mild glance backwards, but after that, they were gone. Topher volunteered to wash the dishes, Gert gave him a solid “good,” and then she, too, disappeared down the hall towards her room. Molly and Chase vanished in the other direction, vaguely bickering about Legend of Zelda. Alex shook himself a little, mildly caught off guard by how fast everyone had split off. He hoped they all remembered that they had to reconvene later to actually follow the plan they’d come up with. Alex hated having to go around reminding everyone of plans they themselves had come up with, though it happened often.

“Hey,” Topher said, seeming awkward. He scratched the back of his neck. “Thanks for… sticking your neck out for me.” 

Alex shrugged. He knew what it was like to have people not believe you were who you said you were, or even that what anything else you were saying was true.. “No problem, dude.”

“I mean it. I—I don’t know what I’d be doing, now, without you guys. I’d still be with my parents, I guess, but I don’t—I was so scared, and so relieved when you guys found me. I’m just… I can’t begin to describe how grateful I am.”

Alex’s heart twinged. “Yeah… yeah I get it, man. Don’t worry about it.”

Topher chewed his lip. “Do you think Nico will come around?”

Alex hesitated. He knew his answer should be ‘yeah, don’t worry about it,’ but he knew Nico, and he knew how long she held grudges.

“I honestly have no idea.”

Topher nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

“Maybe she will,” Alex offered halfheartedly. “She’s just protective, you know? She’s lost a lot.” He sighed heavily. “We all have.” 

Topher didn’t really reply to that—Alex didn’t know how he would’ve expected him to. What were you supposed to say to something like that? So Alex instead cleared his throat. 

“I’m gonna sit down with Gert and Chase and make a plan for getting her car up and running. We’re gonna use the van—I’ll come find you before we leave.”

“Alright,” Topher shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere.”

_ I sure hope not, anyways _ , Alex thought. He trudged off to find Gert. 

 

He found her lying on her bed, her feet propped up on Old Lace (she must’ve reinforced her bedframe, somehow), her guitar on her chest, plucking out a tune. Her door was cracked open and her glasses lay on the bathroom sink. She was quietly singing a tune Alex didn’t recognize. 

_ “It would be a hundred times easier _

_ If we were young again _

_ But as it is _

_ And it is _

_ We're just two slow dancers, last ones out _

_ We're two slow dancers, last ones out” _

He knocked. Gert popped her head up over Old Lace and frowned when she saw Alex.

“Alex?” She asked, and he realized she wasn’t frowning—just squinting because she couldn’t see. 

“Yeah.”

“What’s up?” She laid back down, not bothering to look at him anymore, but at least she stopped plucking the guitar. 

“I just… how are you holding up?”

“You mean besides the fact that I haven’t taken my anxiety meds in God knows how long, we’re stuck underground with no plan and no way of stopping our parents who not only want to end the world but  _ also  _ framed us for murder? And I can’t protect—” Her voice cracked, and she took a breath. “I can’t protect Molly from any of this? Just  _ great _ , Al. I’m doing absolutely fucking  _ awesome _ .”

Alex felt the words in his gut. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” He heard her blow out a breath. “Although it kinda is… those damn coasters, right?”

Alex cracked a smile. “Those damn coasters.”

Gert sat up on her elbows to look at him. “Do you ever think about how, like— _ so  _ many things had to happen for us to be in this situation?”

Alex cocked his head at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, like—you had to grab that stack of coasters, we had to decide to go down there, Molly had to take that picture, you had to cover our asses, we had to decide to investigate instead of just leaving it  _ alone _ … et cetera.  _ So  _ much shit had to happen consecutively for us to be in this mess.” She half-smiled. “If fate, or destiny, or whatever the fuck you want to call it is real, she’s a bitch..”

Alex shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“Happenstance,” Gert said in a pondering voice. “Is a fickle thing.”

“Is that a quote?” 

“I don’t think so,” Gert shrugged. “I was just saying things.”

“It should be a quote.” Alex smiled a little. “Write that in a book.”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Gert snorted. “My autobiography that I’ll publish in ten years, titled  _ My Parents Were Evil Murderers, But Hey, I Turned Out Okay: A Memoir by Gert Yorkes. _ ”

“You’ll outsell J.K. Rowling.”

“I’ll outsell  _ Jesus _ ,”  Gert said. “That shithead’s been number one on the global bestseller list for too long.”

Alex snickered a little. Gert smiled at him. 

“Wish we could be like this all the time, huh?”

_ Without the weight of the world on our shoulders? Yeah _ . 

Gert had always been someone who understood what it felt like to be pressured, ignored, looked over—Alex knew it, and Gert knew it too. They existed in solidarity with each other, the only difference being that Gert was content not to lead—sure, she’d fight and pull and criticize until the cows froze over, but for all her complaining, she never wanted to be the one making the decisions. Alex could respect that. It was a thankless job. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, sure would be nice.”

“But we can’t,” Gert sighed. “So, what’s up?”

Alex leaned on the doorframe and rubbed his temples. “We’re leaving to go get your car soon.”

“Can we even get it working again?” Gert frowned. “She was  _ dead _ . Fried. Everything Nico told us not to say.”

Alex sobered immediately at the reminder of Nico’s hysteria—the way her distress had rolled off of her in  _ waves  _ that night. She’d never been especially emotional, nor one to break down in a situation like that, but that was the closest he’d ever seen her to coming apart. “Yeah. Chase might be able to get her working again, though.”

“And what do we do if he can’t?”

“I…” Alex frowned. “We get Karolina’s car? Or mine? Or lift Chase’s dad’s?”

“Considering Chase’s dad is basically dead, why isn’t that our first choice?” 

“We’re getting yours because nobody will notice it’s gone.” Alex took in a breath. “It’s already out of your driveway—it’s not like someone’s gonna look up and  _ see  _ that it’s missing.”

“True,” Gert muttered. “And I do want my tapes back.”

“ _ Tapes? _ ” Alex asked incredulously. Gert shot him a dirty look. 

“Not all of us can afford environmentally friendly rich people cars.”

“We were all rich,” Alex pointed out. Gert sighed.

“We never lived like it, though—Dale and Stacey poured all their money back into their research.”

“You had a car at sixteen—that’s more than most American citizens.”

Gert twisted her mouth. “Yeah. I don’t know—you had a guest house. Also, stop being annoying, you knew what I meant.”

“That I did. And sorry.” 

“Whatever. So…” Gert rolled her shoulders. “When are we leaving?” 

“Soon,” Alex said. “Let me go get Chase and Topher.”

Gert made a face. “Okay. Come find me when you’re ready.”

She dropped her head back down and as Alex walked away, he heard her start singing again, strumming to the same song as before. 

_ “And the ground has been slowly pulling us back down _

_ You see it on both our skin _

_ We get a few years and then it wants us back...” _

 

* * *

 

Chase poked his head up from behind his bed as Alex walked into his room for the second time that afternoon. The sound of rain somewhere above his head had helped his focus, and so now, he was seated on the floor next to his bed, tinkering with the Fistigons. 

“You ready to go?” Alex asked, eyeing the tiny screwdriver Chase held and the very,  _ very  _ fine wires he’d been threading.

“Sure. Who’s driving?”

“Gert said she would,” Alex shrugged. 

“Shotgun,” Chase said, leaning over to coil a copper thread around one of the bolts, squinting at his delicate work. 

“Shotgun rules don’t apply when you can’t see the car, dipshit,” Alex sighed. “But sure.”

Chase would’ve pumped a fist, but he was scared of breaking the Fistigon held carefully in his hand. “God, this would be so much easier if I still had my blueprints,” he grumbled, peering down at a particular threading. “I think I did that one wrong.”

“I don’t know,” Alex shrugged. “I just know computers.”

“I know, Wilder,” Chase set down the Fistigon on his bed, careful not to jostle what he’d done so far. The wires weren’t  _ live _ , of course, but he didn’t want to accidentally knock something out of place and spend hours reassembling it. The other lay at his feet, still. “Let me grab my shit. Does the van have jumper cables?”

Alex nodded, looking skeptical. “Maybe. I think so. Gert  _ definitely  _ has some in her car, though, knowing her.”

Chase snorted. “That, and kitty litter, and a shovel, and nonperishable snacks, and an emergency blanket—despite the fact that we live in California.”

Alex’s mouth quirked into a small smile—a rare sight, especially to Chase’s eyes. “Yeah. Come on, Gert and Topher are waiting.”

Chase frowned. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Topher yet. On the one hand, Topher was just like them—scared, alone, without parents because they were evil. On the other hand, they’d all at least been friends before the whole PRIDE mess—having someone completely new around threw Chase off his rhythm. And there was something about the way he looked at Gert sometimes… Chase wasn’t sure if it was just jealousy that made him feel queasy about it, or if there was actually something up, but he knew that he didn’t like it.

He stood up and dusted his hands. “I have a bag of shit I grabbed from the SUV in the garage.” Chase grabbed the backpack in question. “Or—former garage.”

Alex nodded. “Let’s go, then. Do you need anything else?”

“Nah, I don’t think so, but we’ll see when we get there, right?”

 

Gert’s driving was better than Karolina’s, at least. Alex and Topher were sitting in the backseat,  _ chatting _ (Alex never chatted, what the fuck?), and Gert was focusing very hard on driving.

Chase hadn’t  _ really  _ talked to her since the night before last, when they’d kissed, but in his defense, it was her choice. She was the one to say she didn’t want anything more, and by God, Chase was going to respect that choice if it killed him. So now, if Gert had changed her mind, well, that was up to her.

Chase really hoped she changed her mind.

Now, though—now she was blasting  _ Chocolate  _ by The 1975 with the windows rolled down, her left arm hanging out and thumping the door as she sang loudly. 

 

_ “Oh we go where nobody knows _

_ With guns hidden under our petticoats _

_ No we're never gonna quit it _

_ No we're never gonna quit it, no,” _

 

She made eye contact with Chase, and he saw her face bloom with scarlet. She didn’t stop, though—Chase had always admired Gert’s confidence, and now it was shining through. That refusal to stop expressing her individuality, that strong presence she held when she was challenged, that stubborn heart and sharp tongue, the simple fact of her mind that said  _ I’m here and I’m not going to be silent, not for anybody _ ; But then that vulnerability, that small voice in her head that still told her she wasn’t enough?  _ That  _ broke Chase’s heart. He wanted to hold her face in his hands and say, ‘you are extraordinary,, and I can’t wait to watch you become the incredible person you were born to be, the person you already  _ are _ , the person that has the whole world holding its breath, waiting to see what she does next.’

Instead, he turned up the volume even more, and sang along with her.

 

_ “Yeah we're dressed in black from head to toe _

_ We've got guns hidden under our petticoats _

_ No we're never gonna quit it _

_ No we're never gonna quit it, no,” _

 

By the end of the chorus, Alex was singing along too. Chase hardly noticed—he was staring at Gert, who was grinning and flushed, her hair blowing in her face, her glasses slipping down her nose. He hadn’t seen her like this in so  _ long _ . Like she had no cares, no weight on her shoulders. Like she had been before Amy died. 

He wanted to kiss her so, so badly.

_ “Hey now we're building up speed as we're approaching the hill _

_ Oh my hair smells like chocolate,”  _ they all continued to sing. Topher looked confused, but didn’t say anything—he didn’t sing along, either, though.

“Hey—is this the dig site?” Chase interrupted, turning down the music. Gert sat up (Chase didn’t know how she saw over the wheel without sitting up, anyways—he was pretty sure she was directly at eye level with the dashboard). 

“Yeah—yeah, I think we’re here,” she said. 

Topher and Alex sat up, too, and peered out the windshield.

“Where is ‘here’?” Topher asked. 

“The dig site,” Alex responded before Chase had a chance to. “The last place we… fought our parents.”

“The  _ only  _ place we’ve fought our parents,” Gert corrected. “Unless you, personally, have socked your dad in the face before—in which case I’d love to hear about that.”

“That’s the alley Roberta’s in,” Chase pointed, shying from the subject that was just a little bit too close to home. “Turn into there.”

Gert jumped like she’d been shocked. “Who told you what I named her?”

“Molly,” Chase and Alex said at the same time. 

“That shithead,” Gert grumbled, but she didn’t sound like she meant it. 

“If it makes you feel better, Nico bullied it out of her,” Chase said, distracted, peering out the window, searching for Gert’s car. Wait—there, on the left.

“On the left,” Alex said, and Gert pulled over. She shut off the music just as the song ended, so Chase didn’t get to hear whatever song had been queued next. He found himself disappointed at the thought.  

“Alright, Chase,” Gert said in a no-nonsense tone. She turned off the van and pointed the key at him accusingly. “If you make Roberta worse, I  _ will  _ strangle you with my bare hands.”

“Not sure I can make her worse,” Chase mumbled. “Unless the whole engine block breaks apart.”

“She’s from 1990. I wouldn’t be surprised.” 

“God.”

“Not all of us have parents that release new cars every year,” Gert said, frowning. 

“No, just ones that develop cutting edge genetic research that might cure cancer.” Chase opened the van door. “Don’t be so modest.”

“They can only afford to do that because the Minorus are their benefactors, or whatever,” Gert huffed. “It’s not like we lived like that.”

“Like what?” Chase asked. Alex cleared his throat from the backseat. 

“Car?” Alex asked. Chase nodded and shut the door behind him. They had to get Gert’s car up and running; chattering away like a lovesick idiot wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

Gert’s car—Roberta—didn’t prove too difficult to revive. For the most part, Chase just had to jump the battery with the van’s (Gert  _ did _ have jumper cables in her trunk, after all—along with three massive bags of granola that she got from Costco, an emergency blanket, a flashlight, a crowbar, and—count them—six pocket knives of varying sizes). He did have to finagle a lightbulb and ended up giving up on her left headlight, but the thing ran. And hey—that was enough.

“You didn’t put her in the ground, Stein—I’ll give you that.” Gert slapped the roof of the car affirmingly—affectionately? Her cluster of Yankee Candle jar scents that hung from the mirror rattled a little at the jolt. The car roared like an angry monster, but she was alive, and ready to rumble. 

Topher still sat in the van. “Is this your car?” He asked Gert.

“She sure is—in all her 1993 Volvo glory.”

Topher made a face. “What—do you play tapes in that?”

“I have an AUX converter,” Gert said defensively. “And I can play CD’s. But… yes. I have a tape deck.”

“Respect,” Topher made a peace sign at her. “Tapes are rad.”

“Rad?” Gert snorted. 

“That’s rad,” Chase said. “Let’s crank her and see if she works.”

“The engine’s running,” Alex pointed out. Chase pointed his spare wire he was holding at him.

“True. But I want to see if she’s gonna go ten feet and break down again.” Chase hopped the hood, definitely not to show off, and opened the passenger side door. “See you guys at home.”

“Hey!” Alex said, but Gert had already sat down in the driver’s seat, apparently following Chase’s train of thought. She slammed her door shut.

“Whaddya have for me, Stein?” Gert released the parking brake and eased the stick into first gear. The car lurched forward. Chase opened his bag and peered inside, searching for his CD. 

“Melodrama,” Chase said triumphantly, withdrawing the blue CD from the bag. Gert’s eyebrows shot up. 

“That’s brand new!” Gert gasped. “Like—that wasn’t even out when we left!”

“I  _ know _ ,” Chase said excitedly—he’d only gotten it because he remembered how much Gert swooned over Lorde. He unwrapped the CD, but before he opened the wrapping, he paused. “All the way through for first-time experience, or shuffle?”

“Shuffle,” Gert said, tapping the CD player. “Pretty sure  _ Green Light  _ is the first one, and I’ve already heard that one..”

“Okay,” Chase agreed, placing the CD in the player and hitting the  _ shuffle  _ button. Gert rolled her window down and shouted to Alex:

“We’re gonna get dinner!”

“Fine!” He yelled back. Gert rolled her window back up just as  _ The Louvre  _ began playing. 

 

_ Well, summer slipped us underneath her tongue _

_ Our days and nights are perfumed with obsession _

_ Half of my wardrobe is on your bedroom floor _

_ Use our eyes, throw our hands overboard _

 

Gert turned down the volume a little. “Wanna get dinner from that Japanese place off of Pepperchase?”

“The one Nico hates? Yeah, sure.” Chase couldn’t remember the name of it, and he hadn’t been there in forever—he’d never been a  _ huge  _ fan of takeout, unlike Gert, who got takeout every week, almost. Gert was an absolute sucker for food she could get quickly and eat quickly, so she ate a lot of fast food and a lot of takeout. 

“That’s gonna be…” Gert scrunched up her nose. “East of here?”

Chase shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I wouldn’t expect you to,” she huffed, putting on her turn signal. They sat at a red light for a moment before the light switched, and she turned, the neighborhoods around them slowly changing from dingy and gross to the pristine, manicured homes of Brentwood. They soon drove through Pepperchase plaza—they were the closest to Karolina’s house, from here. Her house was a ten minute drive further down. Chase pushed the thought out of his mind and squinted, searching for the red neon of the Japanese playlist. A squat place in the corner had a large sign printed:  _ Osaka Japanese Cuisine _ . 

“There,” Chase pointed. He hardly noticed  _ The Louvre  _ ending and being replaced with another song. 

 

_ Every night, I live and die _

_ Feel the party to my bones _

_ Watch the wasters blow the speakers _

 

Gert turned into the parking lot. Chase suddenly recognized the song as  _ Perfect Places _ —but he had hardly a moment to revel in that realization before Gert pulled into a parking space and turned off the car. 

“Do you know what we want?” Gert asked, locking the car as Chase got out next to her. They walked towards the building together, the neon red sign above Chase’s head flickering dimly.

“No idea,” he said. “I haven’t had takeout in… forever.” 

“I like the udon,” Gert said, shrugging, pushing open the front door. Chase heard a bell tinkle somewhere. “But the dumplings are to  _ die  _ for,” she added.

“Dumplings?” Chase echoed. Gert nodded. 

“The sushi is good—I like the Dragon, Snow Crab, and California rolls.”

“I like California,” Chase said, not really following Gert’s rattling but enjoying listening to her anyways. Gert shot him a  _ look  _ as they approached the front counter.

“Hey, what can I get for you two?” The cashier asked them with a Customer Service smile. 

“Hey! This is gonna be to go,” Gert began, peering up at the menu. “I’d like to have two large orders of the chicken fried rice, two orders of the California rolls, a side of white rice… um…” She trailed off, still squinting at the menu. “What would Karolina want?” 

It took Chase a second to realize she was asking him. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Um… an order of chicken dumplings, a side of vegetables, a Sprite, and… what do you want to drink?”

Chase blinked. “I’ll just have a Sprite, too.”

The cashier smiled at them, repeated their order, and told them it would be about twenty minutes. Gert paid, they got their sodas, and sat down. 

“Did you even see their drink menu?” Gert asked, swirling her bottle. Chase stopped sipping on his.

“There was a drink menu?” He asked, somewhat echoey from his brain cells still trying to fire up. Gert nodded. “I thought you just had to guess,” he said sheepishly. Gert rolled her eyes at him. 

“There was a whole menu. I like their tea.”

“Why didn’t you get it?” 

“I haven’t had soda in… weeks,” Gert said, thoughtful. “I think the last time I had soda was at that dance.”

Chase nodded. The punch they’d had technically counted, he guessed—they’d made it by pouring cherry soda with ginger ale, among other things. It had been fizzy, at least.

“Yeah. It’s been a hot minute.”

Gert drank from her bottle. “Gotta love that fizzy.”

“That sounds like a drug,” he said.

“What, fizzy?” Gert made a face. “I don’t know—I always think of those fizzy Vitamin C packets you put in water that turned it orange.”

“The what?”

Gert shrugged. “They said fizzy on the packet, so I just always associated that together.”

Chase suddenly noticed the way her lips had a tiny wet ring where the rim of the bottle had pressed to them. He looked away. 

“Yeah,” he said. 

They sat in silence for a moment, drinking their Sprites, waiting on their food. 

“It’s only, like, two,” Gert said. “Are we really doing this for dinner?”

Chase shrugged. “I don’t know—you were the one that wanted takeout.”

“Touché.” Gert swirled her bottle in her hand. “I think I just wanted something better than that microwave fried rice.”

“That was bad,” Chase agreed. “To be fair, microwaving eggs can’t end well.”

“Never,” Gert nodded. “One time Molly tried to make a mug cake with an egg, and it ended up having the consistency of a sponge.”

“Spongy cake is good.”

“No, like—a literal sponge. Imagine if you just bit a fucking sponge. That’s what that was.”

Chase thought about it. “Like—it sinks under your teeth but doesn’t tear?”

“Exactly!” Gert sat back in her chair. “It was horrible. We just went to Whole Foods and bought a thing of cupcakes instead.”

“Whole Foods cupcakes?” Chase groaned. “God, those are terrible.”

“No, they’re not!” Gert said defensively. “They’re made with clean energy and things that  _ don’t  _ actively harm our planet,  _ plus  _ the box they came in was biogreadable, so… I win.”

“Do you? I mean, you have to eat terrible cupcakes.”

Gert twisted her mouth into an unamused (but secretly amused) frown. “Whatever, Stein.”

“Your loss, Yorkes.”

“Two large udon orders, fried rice, California rolls, dumplings, and…” The cashier began calling out their order, looked up, seemed to realize they were the only two in the restaurant, and just waved them over. Gert stood up, screwing the cap back onto her Sprite. 

“That’s us,” she said unnecessarily. Chase stood up, too, stretching his legs a little, his Sprite already empty. Gert peeked inside the bags at the food, and, after tipping the cashier, they got back in the car.  _ Perfect Places  _ started up again after Gert rumbled the engine back to life. Chase rolled the window down and leaned his seat back a little, the hot takeout in his lap, his arm hanging out of the window, blissful in his sort-of-girlfriend’s car, content to just… be. For once. 

He didn’t even mind when Gert rolled down her own window and turned up the volume—the wind whipping across both of their faces, now, and the music just a little too loud, the bass thrumming through his veins. 

 

_ All of the things we're taking _

_ 'Cause we are young and we're ashamed _

_ Send us to perfect places _

_ All of our heroes fading _

_ Now I can't stand to be alone _

_ Let's go to perfect places _

 

When they arrived back at the Hostel, dumplings and one order of sushi eaten, Karolina intercepted Chase after he parted with Gert. 

“Hey, I found something cool earlier. Wanna see?”

The last time she’d wanted to show him something cool, Karolina had taken off her bracelet and lit up like a Friday night rave, so he agreed. If Chase knew anything at this point, it was that nothing that happened to him was boring anymore. 

She led him down the collapsed hallway she’d mentioned earlier (after Chase deposited he and Gert’s takeout in the communal fridge—he said communal because he  _ happened  _ to know that Nico had a mini fridge somewhere), picking her way carefully over the splintered wood and sharp rocks. Chase was less fortunate in the flying department, so he had to buck up and deal with splinters without whining. 

It ended up being  _ so  _ worth it, though, when Karolina pushed over a half-shattered door that she’d apparently propped up, and Chase’s jaw dropped to the ground.

“ _ Whoa _ ,” he breathed, speechless with wonder. 

Around him stood the most incredible cavern, sunlight streaming through a hole in the mud ceiling high above, vines creeping down from the edges of the ragged hole. The expanse in front of him was just water—not deep, and clear enough that he could see the bottom. If Chase had to guess, he’d have said it probably came up to about his hips. 

“Look at this place!” Karolina said, a mixture of triumphant and smug. “I think the stuff in the middle might be some outbuilding collapsed into here.”

Indeed, it looked like there was some wreckage underneath the hole. Wood and stone piled in the center, and if Chase squinted up at the sky, he could sort of make out more destruction at the top.

“Yeah—probably whatever earthquake that destroyed the main house created this whole spring.”

“I can’t even think of when the last time we had an earthquake severe enough to cause something like this was,” Karolina said, frowning. “Must’ve been, like, forever ago.”

“Long enough that those fully grown trees around our front door had time to grow there,” Chase pointed out. “So, yeah.”

“How long has this been untouched, do you think?” Karolina almost whispered. Her voice sounded awestruck. There  _ was  _ something amazing about witnessing this beautiful feature, especially knowing that he and Karolina were among the first to see it. The way the water reflected the sunlight on the walls of the cavern was just… breathtaking.

Chase picked up a small pebble from next to his feet and tossed it, watching it skip twice before plopping down in the water. The light refractions on the walls danced with the disturbance. 

“Not long enough,” Chase said, peering up at the dirt ceiling that he could barely see. “This place has something about it.”

“Something?”

“Yeah, like…” Chase struggled to find the right words. “A magic about it.”

Karolina nodded. She waded into the pool a little—the way the water received her light, took it and made it brilliant and lit up the whole cavern in pink glow—well, it was beautiful. The way she washed the whole cavern in a gorgeous, ethereal glow—it looked like something out of a fairy tale, or a fantasy.

“Nico would love this,” Karolina murmured, wading out deeper into the mud. Chase almost didn’t hear her—but he agreed. That soft bitch absolutely would.

“So would Gert,” he said, not even thinking about his reply, because suddenly the image of Gert standing next to him in this place tightened his chest and made it hard to breathe. He could almost imagine running his fingers through her hair…

“ _ Ah!” _ Karolina shrieked, leaping into the air. Chase had to do a double take when he saw how high she flew, certain his mind had played a trick on him, until he remembered his friend just so happened to possess the ability of flight.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, wading out to where she was. The water was cool, refreshing on his legs.

“I just slipped,” she mumbled, sheepish. He was sure she’d be bright red if she wasn’t pink and sparkling. “It’s slick over here.” 

Chase picked his way over, peering into the murky water at where she’d been. He hardly had to peer, though—he, too, slipped, but since he didn’t have the power of flight, he fell onto his ass and got  _ soaked  _ in the shallow water. Karolina screamed with laughter, still hovering over the water with her toes just barely touching the surface. Chase spluttered—the water wasn’t  _ deep _ , but it was enough that he’d been fully underwater for a good moment. 

“Shut up,” Chase pointed at her. “Shut. Up.”

She giggled at him. He splashed water at her.

“Ohhh,” she said, or rather, just made some sort of vague noise. “That’s good. That feels nice.”

“Okay, Kar,” Chase said, trying and failing to stand up. “Time to go back home.”

He didn’t think about his choice of words until he saw the way her face fell, saw the way her body wobbled in the air and she dropped a few inches, now ankle deep in the water. 

“We  _ are _ home,” she mumbled. It didn’t sound like she believed it.

“We are,” he said firmly. Whatever they’d had before—that wasn’t home.  _ This  _ was.

“Yeah.” She looked up at the sky. “So why do I miss it so much?”

Chase’s felt his throat get uncomfortable, like tears were welling. He blinked and inhaled deeply. 

“It’s… I don’t know.”

“Because it hurts,” Gert said, appearing in the hallway with Molly. The way she was standing at the top of the slope, washed in the ethereal glow of Karolina’s lights, her glasses glinting in the sunlight—it took Chase’s breath away. It took another moment to realize she was wearing his jacket that he’d picked out at the thrift store with Nico, and that her guitar was slung over her back.

“Gert!” Karolina broke into a wide smile. 

“Hey!” Chase was suddenly aware that he was still sitting in the muddy water, his hair looking like someone dropped drywall dust into a can of water and then poured it on his head. 

Gert smiled at them half-heartedly. “That was our family, you know? And we didn’t really get the chance to mourn, because—because they’re evil.” Gert squeezed her eyes shut and wiped her eye with her palm. “I don’t  _ want  _ to miss them.”

“Especially ‘cause Dale and Stacey are even  _ worse  _ now,” Molly added. 

“We didn’t want to think about it,” Karolina said, sighing. “I mean—my mom’s a  _ murderer _ — _ all  _ of our parents are murderers, and I… I miss them.” 

Chase nodded—that was pretty much how he’d grown up. Terrified, cowering every time his father came home, knowing it was coming but not knowing when, waiting for his next beating. And then his father had been  _ nice  _ to him, and it was like none of that had happened. Like he finally just had a normal dad. Until he screwed up, or dropped something, or made a mistake, and that paralyzing fear returned, reminding him that it  _ wasn’t  _ normal, reminding him that half an hour of smiling and joking could never erase years upon years of pain and hurt and confusion and fear. 

“I get that,” he whispered, more afraid of them hearing him than not. Gert shot him a look—she probably hadn’t heard, but seen the movement of his lips. He offered her a half-smile. 

“I think… I think we just miss the idea of having a  _ family _ , you know?” Gert sniffed. “Like—not that I ever felt loved and supported anyways, but—the feeling of having a family.”

“You guys are my family,” Molly declared. “I don’t care about what anyone else says.”

“We’re your family, Molly,” Karolina said, dropping down into the water a little more. “We’re all family, now.”

“Which means I get to call you guys ‘bitch,’” Gert said, peering down at the water where Chase was squatting. “And I have to write my name on all my food, I guess.”

“Nico just has a mini fridge,” Karolina said, frowning. “She won’t even let me put my stuff in there.”

“That’s cause as soon as you do, it’s not her fridge anymore. It’s the kale and kombucha fridge.”

Karolina made a face. 

“Ouch,” Molly said, putting her hand over her heart dramatically. “You didn’t have to kill her like that.”

“I’m hurt,” Karolina pouted. “Uncalled for.”

Gert shrugged. “I’m right.”

Chase stood up. “I’m cold.”

“Come sit on the cold mud with us,” Gert said, peering around and apparently spotting a comfortable rock to sit on. She scooched onto the half-protruding boulder and propped her feet on the pile of wood wreckage just underneath it. “We were gonna chill and have a sing-along. Like a  _ family _ .”

“Except Alex didn’t want to come—he was playing some game with Topher.” Molly frowned. “And I think Nico was showering.”

Karolina shrugged. “Whatever. We’re still a family.”

“Requests?” Gert asked, removed the guitar from her back and strumming it a little. Chase was struck with déjà vu at the scene so eerily similar to them sitting on the grassy hill together as she tuned the guitar. This time, she didn’t have trail mix, and it was darker (Karolina had finally stopped floating/glowing), but the scene was the same.

“God… what’s that one…” Karolina waded over to where Molly and Gert were now both sitting on the rock, Chase following. “I can’t think of the name but it was  _ so  _ Southern.”

“Um…” Gert frowned. “Was it, like… the wagon—”

“Yeah!” Karolina beamed. Gert smiled and began playing a progression of chords. 

“Normally, a fiddle would cut in here,” Gert said under her breath. Karolina sat down on the mud and began bobbing back and forth. Molly clapped her hands, her face lighting up. Chase had  _ no  _ idea what song this might be, but they all seemed to know it, and they were having fun, so he wasn’t going to interrupt.

_ “Heading down south to the land of the pines; I'm thumbing my way into North Caroline. Staring up the road and pray to God I see headlights,”  _ Gert sang. Karolina grinned, singing the harmony for the next verse. They both swayed.

_ “I made it down the coast in seventeen hours, picking me a bouquet of dogwood flowers—and I'm a-hopin' for Raleigh, I can see my baby tonight.”  _ The way Gert dragged out the last note, the way her hair fell in her face but she didn’t move to brush it aside—Chase could  _ almost  _ forgive the godawful Southern accent she was putting on for the song. Molly chimed in for the chorus. 

_ “So rock me momma like a wagon wheel _

_ Rock me momma any way you feel _

_ Hey, momma rock me _

_ Rock me momma like the wind and the rain _

_ Rock me momma like a south bound train _

_ Hey, momma rock me” _

Gert harmonized  _ perfectly _ —Chase didn’t even know the words but her lyrical talent was just… radiating from her. He was sure that adoration was written on his face; when Gert looked at him, she flushed red and looked away. Karolina glanced at him, curious, but Chase didn’t make eye contact. The girls finished singing the rest of the song, their three-part harmony just  _ perfect _ , Gert’s guitar never faltering, and Chase was okay with just sitting there on the cold mud, listening. 

It was nice.

Gert strummed out the closing chords, plucking the last one and shutting her eyes. Karolina blew out a long breath.

“Anything else?” Gert asked, her hands still hovering over the strings. 

“Um.” Chase tried to think, but he was  _ sure  _ Gert was looking at him with some intensity in her gaze, and he couldn’t bring any thoughts up to that without them scattering like dust in the light.

“Hozier.” Molly rubbed her hands together. “Lesbian bog witch energy.”

“The song, or?”

“There’s a Hozier song called ‘lesbian bog witch energy’?” Chase blinked.

“They’re  _ all  _ called ‘lesbian bog witch energy,’” Molly rolled her eyes. 

“Okay, well,” Gert twisted her mouth, drumming her fingers on the guitar’s neck. “I know a few Hozier ones.”

“Which ones?” Chase tried to remember what Hozier even  _ sounded  _ like at this point, but the name didn’t conjure anything specific. 

“Um…  _ Like Real People Do, Cherry Wine,  _ and  _ From Eden _ .”

“ _ Cherry Wine _ ,” Karolina chimed in. “That one just sounds good.”

“I didn’t know you even knew who Hozier was,” Gert muttered, but beginning the first chord. 

“You used to make me listen to him all the time, whenever you had the AUX cord.” Karolina leaned back onto her palms in the mud. “I don’t even like the song, but it just sounds nice.”

“Hard same,” Gert said. “The whole message of it? No thanks. The sound? Yes please.”

Chase liked the way she plucked the strings in such a different way from the song they’d just sung.

_ “Her eyes and words are so icy, oh, but she burns, like rum on the fire. Hot and fast and angry as she can be—I walk my days on a wire.” _

 

They sang more songs, together, until the sun in the sky dropped lower, and the light in the cave turned from a lovely, bright yellow to a darkening pink, and eventually to a burning orange. Chase could’ve listened to Gert singing for the rest of his life, honestly, but he figured it had gone on long enough when Karolina began yawning, and Molly’s head started nodding. Gert pursed her lips. 

“Bedtime, huh?”

Karolina gave her the evil eye. “I like sleeping early, okay?”

“God.” Gert shook her head. “I’m still convinced you’re, like, ninety years old in a teenage body.”

“That’s… gross,” Karolina said. 

“No, she’s just an alien—we been knew.” Molly stood up.

“It’s your bedtime, though,” Gert said, zipping up the guitar back into its case. Chase tentatively got to his feet, stretching, leaving Karolina as the only one still sitting.

Molly pouted. “I don’t want you guys as my family anymore.”

“Stacey would’ve put you to bed an hour ago,” Gert huffed. “Now, are you gonna make me carry you?”

“Yes, please,” Molly said, eager, holding up her arms to be picked up.

“Me, too,” Karolina said, grinning sleepily. Chase rolled his eyes at them, but he couldn’t push down the small smile. 

“Chase, go tell Nico she needs to collect her trash,” Gert said. Karolina pouted. Chase shrugged at her. 

“Sorry,” he said. She scrunched up her face. Chase leaned down and picked up Molly by her legs, slinging her over his shoulder. “C’mon, squirt—Mom said it’s bedtime.”

Gert stuck her tongue out at Chase, who was ignoring Molly’s squirming. “Call me ‘Mom’ one more time and the last thing you’ll see before you die is a set of dinosaur teeth.”

“Note taken,” Chase said. “Now, come on, Molls—bedtime.”

“Noooooooo…..” she protested weakly. Chase just sighed. Climbing through that collapsed hallway was going to be difficult.  _ Especially  _ if Karolina was going to refuse to walk, too.

“This is oppression,” Karolina said, and Gert rolled her eyes again.

“Oh my God, Kar. You fucking princess.”

Karolina leaned back and plopped into the mud. “Carry me.”

“Choke.” Gert looked down at her, an utter lack of sympathy in her face. 

“You’re gonna make her cry,” Chase said. “She doesn’t remember how to walk.”

“I guess that’s what happens when you learn you can fly,” Gert sighed. “Come on, princess. I’ll get Nico to carry you out or something, but I can’t get you through this hallway.”

“Nico would die,” Molly mumbled. Gert shot her a  _ don’t talk  _ look that Chase spotted, but Molly didn’t because she was slung over Chase’s shoulder, still.

Chase decided he should probably get out before Gert and Karolina’s arguing had a chance to escalate (he doubted it would, but knowing them, they’d find a way to fight over it), so he started his trudge through the demolished hallway, back to the Hostel.

 

* * *

 

Gert’s whole body sagged with exhaustion. She stumbled on her way back to her room, barely catching herself on the wall as she blindly threw out a hand to break her fall. She took in a deep breath.

Gert and Chase had sat up after Molly and Karolina had gone to bed, drinking Karolina’s shitty vodka in their newfound underground spring. They’d passed the bottle back and forth, taking sips and playing Twenty Questions. She remembered Chase asking her what her favorite animal was. She’d said giraffe. Chase had asked her if she was bisexual. Gert had snorted—he didn’t have to corner her in a game to ask.

“Yeah,” she’d said. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he’d said, brow furrowed. “That’s cool.”

Gert had raised her own brows. “Cool? Is that it?”

“I mean, like… it’s cool that you’re comfortable in your sexuality, you know? That’s… that’s great, and I’m really happy for you.”

“No more vodka,” she’d said, taking the bottle from him. Chase shook his head. 

“It’s not—it’s not the alcohol.”

Gert had mulled that over in her Smirnoff flavored brain cell soup. “Question… whatever number we’re on. Are  _ you  _ bisexual?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“That’s fine,” Gert had replied, flushing heavily. “If that’s touchy or something, we don’t have to… to talk about it.”

Chase had nodded. They’d finished their game, made out a little bit, and now, Gert was tripping down the hallway back to her room—she didn’t even know if she had her glasses on, honestly. She hoped she did. 

Her brow furrowed—she hadn’t even really done anything today. Why was she so tired?

_ Long day _ , her brain said.  _ Sleep. _

Sleep sounded pretty good, so she took a steadying breath and pushed off the wall, regaining her balance and barely taking a step before bumping into Topher.

“Hey,” he said, looking down at her (he was taller than Chase, and tanner). She squinted up at him. Fuck. She  _ wasn’t  _ wearing her glasses. 

“H—Hi,” she said, trying to decide whether to move past him or talk to him or be concerned about her glasses. “What were you doing back there?”

“Hmm?”

“That’s—” Gert frowned, trying to concentrate. “That’s me and Nico’s rooms, back there—well, Nico and Karolina both, I guess, now.”

“I was looking for you, actually,” he said easily. She blinked.

“Why?”

“Just wanted to talk?” He smiled at her. Honestly, he wasn’t half bad looking—she might’ve been interested before Chase had swept into her heart and stolen it away.

“What about?” She asked, trying to keep her voice cool and casual. 

“Nothing,” Topher said, grinning. The last thing Gert remembered seeing were pointed teeth and the reflection of light in his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Nico finally finished her too-long night routine and crawled into bed, curling up underneath the covers by herself since Karolina was nowhere to be found. Nico pouted to herself at that thought—Karolina was  _ warm  _ and especially good at keeping Nico cozy at night, so her absence, while already strange simply because of the late hour, was sorely noticed. She’d managed to spruce up her room a little, though—her bed was now cushioned and her pillows replaced with squishy down, so sleeping by herself wasn’t  _ too  _ much of a chore.

Karolina still being missing by the time Nico started drifting off was odd, though—odd enough that Nico struggled to keep herself awake just to give her a halfhearted lecture when she came back. She’d say something about not staying out late (she  _ wouldn’t  _ mention her freezing toes and small ache at not having Karolina’s waist to curl her arms around)—but Karolina had to come back first. 

Nico  _ did  _ startle into wakefulness at the sound of scuffling happening, somewhere in the hall. 

“I swear to God, Karolina, that better not be you,” Nico grumbled, not very loudly. When no response came (she didn’t expect one to), she curled her lip in annoyance and sat up, ignoring her cold feet that protested the contact with the cold floor. Luckily, she’d left one of Chthulhu’s candles burning low for the light (it also filled the room with a pleasant scent of strawberries, which Karolina loved when she was there), so it didn’t take Nico long to stumble out of bed, tie on her robe whose whole purpose was for putting on in the mornings when she didn’t want to put on a bra, and throw her door open.

“Hey?” She called out, peering down the dark hall, squinting. No sound answered her. “Hello?”

Huh. That was odd. Nico was  _ sure  _ she’d heard something. Her Staff still lay on her bed—it wouldn’t hurt to grab that, just in case. 

Armed with the Staff and still no bra, Nico tiptoed out into the hallway.

_ “Light,” _ she said, holding up the Staff in front of her. It sparked red and summoned, instead of light, a small cloud of frogs at her feet. Nico squinted at them. The largest was no bigger than her big toe. 

“Huh,” she said. Tonight was getting weirder and weirder. 

Nico picked her way down the hall, all hopes of it just being Karolina gone from her, instead replaced with icy fear in her blood. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. 

Even more so when Nico’s toes bumped into something small and wire. She peered down at it—if she squinted, the shape of Gert’s glasses became apparent.

“Gert?” Nico called out, hoping against hope that she’d appear from the shadows. She didn’t. Nico bit her lip. Both Gert and Karolina were missing, now—she needed to find the others, fast. 

Nico picked up her pace, probably squishing some frogs along the way (she couldn’t help it—they were tiny, and there were a  _ lot  _ of them, and they were just climbing on her feet like they were begging to be stepped on), but she didn’t really have time to feel bad about them, seeing as she tripped over Old Lace at the end of the hallway.

“Shit, you’re here,” Nico groaned, facedown in the mud. “Gert must  _ really  _ be in trouble, huh?”

Old Lace made some kind of whining noise. Nico twisted her mouth in sympathy. 

“Yeah, I’m missing someone, too. Wanna go find them together?”

Old Lace hummed in what Nico hoped was agreement. Nico pushed herself to her feet, wiped her hands on her robe, and patted Old Lace’s nose.

“Good girl.” 

Nico finally found her way into the atrium, where, to her relief, Molly, Alex, and Chase were already gathered. They were all wearing pajamas and only illuminated by a lamp that Chase had managed to get working, hanging next to Karolina—Topher’s door. 

“Topher’s missing,” Alex said.

“So’s Karolina,” Nico replied, trying not to feel annoyed that Alex noticed his new bestie missing before Gert or Karolina. “And Gert.”

Chase’s eyes widened. “Gert?”

“Karolina?” Molly asked. Nico nodded, grim. 

“They’re both—I haven’t seen either of them in hours.”

“Karolina went to bed, like, three hours ago,” Chase frowned. “And Gert just left me, like, fifteen minutes ago.”

“Are those frogs?” Molly pointed at Nico’s bare feet, which were still covered with the tiny toads. They felt uncomfortable on Nico’s skin. She nodded.

“I haven’t seen Karolina since… lunchtime,” Nico said, thinking. “She was checking out some hallway with you, Molly, and then—”

“She was with us when we got home,” Chase said. Alex frowned. 

“Where were you guys all day?”

“We found this cool underground spring,” Molly grinned. “We were just chilling in there all day.”

“I’m glad you had fun,” Alex said, his voice flat. “But where are Topher and Karolina now?”

“And Gert,” Chase added. “I just saw her, like— _ ten  _ minutes ago. She can’t be far.”

“I, ah…” Nico held up Gert’s glasses. “I found these in the hall.”

The way the color drained from Chase’s face at the sight, Nico almost caught herself leaning forward to prop him up.

“And… and Old Lace,” Chase said, pointing at the dinosaur behind Nico. “Was… where?”

“Sitting in the hall. Like she was waiting, almost.”

“Do…” Alex said, but hesitated. “Do you think Old Lace could follow their scents?”

Nico frowned. Honestly, she doubted it—not because Old Lace was a dinosaur, but more because she only really took commands from Gert. And since Gert wasn’t present at the moment, Nico wasn’t wholly sure they weren’t all about to become a midnight snack.

Molly brushed past Nico to take Old Lace’s face in her hands, snatching Gert’s glasses from Nico’s open palm on her way past. She held Old Lace’s chin with one hand and the glasses up to Old Lace’s eye with the other.

“Can you take us to Gert?” She asked sweetly. Old Lace snorted.

“Eww,” Nico said, seeing the snot speckle Molly’s chest. “Boogers.”

“Eww, indeed,” Alex said, nodding at the snot now dripping onto the floor. “But effective. She’s on the move, ladies.” Alex nodded at Old Lace, who was beginning to wind her way towards the Hostel exit. “And Chase,” Alex added as an afterthought. Chase punched his arm in that light, bro sort of way. Honestly, Nico wasn’t sure if it was teasing anymore, though.

The three of them followed Old Lace through the tunnel and out into the night sky. Nico ignored how her skin prickled with chilly goosebumps. She wanted Karolina back, and she was terrified something had happened to her.

Nico pretty much stopped paying attention once they were under the sky, her thoughts deeply absorbed into possibilities of Karolina related peril. She could’ve been kidnapped, or killed, or stuck somewhere that she couldn’t cry out to them, or just  _ left  _ back to PRIDE—she could’ve become sick of their little play pretending at being heroes, and gone back to her comfortable life at home. Could Nico blame her? On the other hand, Nico knew Karolina better than that—Karolina would rather eat glass and drink gasoline than go back to that without them—hell, she’d  _ proved  _ it when she’d thrown herself at Jonah and told Nico to run.

And now she was gone, again, and all Nico could think about was that Karolina promised—she’d  _ promised  _ that she wouldn’t leave Nico. So where the hell  _ was _ she?

Not to mention Gert, and Topher. Nico had a sneaking suspicion that Topher was the orchestrator of this whole fiasco, but she wasn’t going to say that out loud—if it turned out he wasn’t, Nico would just be even more villainized in Alex’s eyes. 

One of the frogs was on Nico’s thigh, now. The coldness of it presented itself in sparkling clarity, a jarring contrast to the numbness that the rest of her senses gave her. Nico stopped walking for a moment to notice how he sat there, completely unperturbed, no larger than Nico’s thumbnail.

_ Do you know how tiny you are? Do you have anything to be worried about at all, except that you might be squished? _

“Nico!” Molly said, and Nico looked up. Chase and Alex were still walking, keeping up with Old Lace, but Molly had stopped to wait for her. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Nico said, her throat suddenly swollen with tears. She missed Karolina—she wanted to hold her and bury her face in her neck and say  _ ‘don’t you ever scare me like this again, do you hear me?’ _ —she wanted to hold Karolina forever and never, ever let her out of her sight again. 

The frog peeped.

“Yeah, I just have one of the frogs on my leg, I was getting it off.”

“Where did they even come from?” Molly frowned. “I haven’t seen any frogs in a while.”

“I think—I think the Staff summoned them.” 

“Really?” Molly’s eyebrows shot up. “Did you ask for frogs?”

“No,” Nico shook her head, plucking the frog from her thigh and placing it on the grass. “That’s what was weird about it.”

“Yeah, that is weird.” Molly hummed a little to herself. “Come on—we need to catch up with the others.”

“Yeah,” Nico said, and let Molly drag her off again. Her head was spinning—her stomach felt nauseated with worry over Karolina and Gert. She hadn’t even though about Gert as much, Nico realized with a twinge of guilt—but could you blame her? The lack of Karolina was what was fueling her footsteps. The absence of Gert still felt like a painful wound, too—Nico found herself missing Gert’s snark and loud mouth more and more as the seconds turned into minutes, and the minutes turned into hours. She wasn’t sure how many hours—more than one, at least. The anxiety in her chest only got tighter as Old Lace doubled back a few times, stopped, led them in circles, or sometimes just flopped down on the grass.

“Does she even know where Gert is?” Chase asked, breaking the tense silence, finally. Nico could’ve screamed at how frustrating this was.

“Let’s hope,” Alex said, but it didn’t sound very reassuring.

“Gert!” Molly shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth. Nico squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block them out, trying to keep her heart rate steady, trying to tell herself that everything was fine and Karolina would come back any second. The last time she’d even  _ seen  _ Karolina was before noon that day. Was it even still the same day? Was it past midnight? She hadn’t seen Karolina for  _ twelve hours _ . That was what was grating on her nerves, fraying them apart. Not to mention Gert’s wit and charm, and Topher— _ Topher  _ being missing on top of it all.

Nico was going to beat him to death with her bare fists if she ever found him. 

“Ge-ert!” Chase shouted. “Ge-e-ert!”

“Topher!” Alex yelled. 

“Karolina,” Nico whispered, crossing her arms a little tighter and clenching her fists.

Old Lace made a snorting noise and suddenly bolted ahead. Nico jolted like she’d been shocked, squinting ahead—the tree line broke a few feet in front of her, but she had to push through the undergrowth to make her way into the clearing. Once she did, her jaw dropped.

The whole area—a circular space not larger than thirty feet in diameter—was a clearing of wild roses. Some looked like cultivated bushes turned feral, some looked like they’d always been snarled and wild. They were all beautiful, especially with the nearly-full moon shining down on them, but Nico hardly noticed them. There, on the other side of the clearing, Karolina was clutching a wreath of the roses. She wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was Karolina, honestly, but she was glowing rainbow and floating off the ground.

“ _ Karolina!”  _ Nico shouted. Her relief was short-lived, though—as Karolina turned to look at them, Nico’s stomach dropped. Something was deeply, deeply wrong. Karolina’s tension was palpable from thirty feet away.

“Nico!” Karolina yelled, not moving. 

“Goddamnit,” a third voice said, and Nico recognized it as Topher. 

“ _ Bitch _ ,” Nico snarled before she could even think, breaking into a sprint. “Where’s Gert?” She shouted to Karolina.

“Topher has her!” Karolina replied. “He’s—he’s trying to turn her… or… I don’t know!”

“ _ Turn  _ her?” Alex asked. Nico hadn’t even noticed the rest of them following her—she’d been so tunnel visioned on Karolina that everything else hardly mattered. 

“He’s… he’s a vampire,” Karolina said shakily. Nico ground to a halt when she reached the scene—Topher stood about ten feet away from Karolina, Gert lying on the ground next to him. He had a fresh, oozing burn on his face. 

“Did you do that?” Nico asked.

“ _ Bitch _ ,” Topher spat, rubbing blood on his sleeve. “Shoulda bit you first.”

“Shewouldn’ttastegood,” Gert mumbled, slurring a little. Topher growled even more.

“And you woke the bitch up,” he said. 

“Nobody gets to call Gert a bitch,” Molly snapped. “And you’re gonna pay for it.”

“Am I?” Topher asked, his confident, malicious grin just barely masking the flicker of panic in his eyes.  _ I saw that _ , Nico thought. She knew fear well enough.

“So… your parents? Were they vampires too?”

“My… oh—” Topher laughed a little. “No, those were people  _ I  _ turned. I was  _ their  _ father, by giving them this gift. Immortality, power—the whole nine yards.”

“Immortality, huh?” Chase frowned. “Is that why you like Whitney Houston?”

Molly grumbled something in response. Topher made a face. 

“I’m hundreds of years old—I figured I was pretty modern.”

“You—hundreds of years old?” Karolina spluttered. “You  _ flirted  _ with me!”

“Men are gross, we been knew,” Molly pointed out. “He’s basically just one of the ninety year old men at Hooter’s that grab the waitresses asses.”

Nico almost snorted at the expression of horrified disgust on Karolina’s face—now was  _ not  _ the time, even if what Molly said was perfectly accurate. 

“Anyways,” Alex said. “Hate to cut this short, but—you have our friend. And she’s going to be very pissed when she wakes up.”

“Yeah,” Chase added. “What… what he said.”

Topher took a step backwards. Nico saw the desperation in his eyes—if she didn’t act  _ now _ , she didn’t know what would happen.

She pointed the Staff at Topher. “ _ Frog! _ ”

A cloud of mist appeared around Topher instantly, and Nico coughed, waving it out of her face. When she looked down, a fat toad sat on the grass where Topher had been. Nico was pretty sure she could see a tattoo on its arm where Topher had had one.

“...Huh.” Nico said. “That was easy.”

Gert sat up, blinking. “Where’s… where’s Topher?”

Chase pointed at the toad. “Right there.”

Gert squinted at the grass. “...Where?”

Chase handed her her glasses. Gert took them at put them on, blinking and shaking her head. She looked at the toad again, and from the toad to Nico’s Staff.

“You did that?”

Nico shrugged. “I guess so.”

Karolina hadn’t said anything, her mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out. Molly crouched down onto the grass to poke toad Topher. He hissed and hopped away.

“He’s a  _ frog! _ ” 

“Looks like a toad, to be honest,” Alex said, nonchalant. When Nico looked at him, he smiled a little and said, “Always knew you were a scary witch.”

Nico found herself smiling back. For once, there was no tension between them, no uneasy turning of her stomach when their eyes met.

It felt like a new start.

“He’s… he’s a toad,” Chase whispered, looking back and forth from the now-hopping-away toad and Nico. “You turned him into a toad.”

“You’re next,” Nico grumbled. She turned to look at Karolina, who had dropped to the ground next to her. “Why were  _ you  _ out here?”

Karolina’s eyes widened. “I… I found this clearing while I was exploring, earlier—that’s the observatory.” She pointed at the dilapidated building that Nico hadn’t noticed before, just beyond the clearing, behind the tree line. “I found all these roses… and I was going to surprise you…” Karolina held up the rose wreath, sheepish. Nico flushed—she’d been so angry and worried sick, and Karolina had been weaving roses for her.

Nico pressed a tiny kiss to Karolina’s lips, quick and light, aware of the others fussing over Gert just a few feet away.

“You scared me,” Nico mumbled. Karolina smiled a little.

“I’m sorry.” She held out the roses for Nico to take. “Consider this my apology?”

“Hmm…” Nico took it in her hands. The thing was  _ heavy _ —and larger than Nico’s head. No wonder she was gone for hours. “Accepted.”

Gert stood up behind them with the help of Chase, looking woozy. She eyed Nico and Karolina standing so close together, but said nothing, for which Nico was grateful. Nico caught Gert’s eye, and they exchanged small smiles. 

“Let’s go home,” Gert said. 

_ Home.  _ Something Nico never thought she’d have again- but even she can be wrong sometimes, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... there's probably gonna be a hiatus after chapter 7, because chapter 8 is shaping up to be really, really, r e a l l y long. and im not done with it. so........ prepare, i guess?  
> as always, thanks for reading, make sure to comment/follow on twitter if u enjoyed it! <3


	7. birthright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from never look away / vienna teng)

Gert was honest to God going to kill someone. She was excessively tired, her nose was running, and she still had her period. No matter how many times she swore up and down she was getting sick (and she was!), nobody seemed to pay attention or try to help her. Chase had been kind enough to hold her until she fell asleep the night before (probably because he didn’t want to leave her alone after the whole Topher thing, honestly), so at least she could give him whatever she was coming down with, too. Maybe if they were both sick, someone would take her seriously. 

It didn’t help that Gert’s anxiety was getting worse. She’d had a panic attack on the way back to the Hostel last night, which was  _ embarrassing  _ in front of everyone. Molly had carried her the rest of the way back, but Gert had seen the pitying looks. She knew about the whispers. Not that she would accuse her friends of making fun of her anxiety—she knew they wouldn’t (even if Nico’s asking if she had medication rubbed her the wrong way—she hadn’t  _ meant  _ it like that). But even still, it was hard to push down the years of people talking behind her back, or sometimes to her face, calling her weird, or a baby, or fucked up in the head. She swallowed her pills in the bathrooms, in the car before class, in the locker rooms when nobody was looking. It hadn’t mattered. She was the gay druggie social justice warrior—so she’d leaned into that. She smoked weed behind the school. She kissed girls in the bathroom. She started social justice clubs. She even  _ was _ all of those things, normally, so why not be obnoxious about it? If she ostracized herself for those things, then at least she was the one holding that power, and not the ones who rejected her for it. If she made those the parts of herself that people could see, then maybe they wouldn’t see the hurt underneath.

It hadn’t helped. She was still Gert.

And somehow, Chase had seen through all of that, too. He’d seen her—through the pills in the bathroom stalls, through the pot smoked behind the dumpster, through every shield she’d thrown up to hide the hurt, hide the pain.

Gert rolled over and turned on her iPod. She was in a mood, and she could think of one song to make her feel better. 

“Hey—hey, hand me my earbuds for me.” She swatted Chase’s arm. He grumbled and turned his head. “Please,” she added after a moment.

“Here?” Chase grabbed the earbuds that lay on Gert’s ‘sidetable’ (it was a wooden plank propped up by crates, but whatever). 

“Yeah.” Gert took them from him, plugged them in, and searched for the song she wanted. It took her a minute (damn the lack of a screen), but eventually, a familiar opening chord sounded. Gert smiled and leaned back into Chase’s arms, who had already fallen asleep again.

 

_ I know girls who are trying to fit into the social norm _

_ Like squeezing into last year's prom dress _

_ I know girls who are low rise, mac eyeshadow, and binge drinking _

_ I know girls that wonder if they're disaster and sexy enough to fit in _

 

_ Preach it, Mary _ , Gert thought. She’d always liked this—she’d always liked Mary Lambert, too. A fat woman, a lesbian, a successful, powerful  _ icon _ who used her platform to speak up for the girls like her? Someone who knew what she’d been through? Gert had all of her songs downloaded—she’d even  _ bought  _ them on iTunes. 

It was so easy, though, to think that her body was something worth loving. It was easy to think that when all she had was a cracked mirror in the dark, and nobody to prove it to herself. It was quite another to try and believe it in the daylight, when she could see the imperfections of her skin.

Chase’s arms tightened around Gert’s waist. She looked down, startled. There he was—perfectly sculpted, perfectly made—cuddling someone like her. She smiled a little—sure, she didn’t believe in finding your worth because of a man, but maybe, if he kept looking at her like she was a queen, she’d be okay. 

Gert switched the song. She resonated with  _ Body Love _ , a lot—maybe a little too much. She frowned. The next song glazed over her ears, the lyrics bouncing off of her head. She closed her eyes, soaking in some feeling, but she didn’t know what it was. She felt nothing at all but tiredness. She was tired—tired of running, tired of feeling like she wasn’t enough, tired of feeling scared, and uncertain, and so, so alone. 

 

_ I cry because I'm on meds or because I forgot my meds or I'm crying for the fact I'm crying because I forgot my meds and does this actually mean I am myself? _

_ And I am crying because maybe I am myself _

_ And that doesn't feel like enough _

 

_ Lay your head down _

_ Lay your head down _

_ Lay your head down on me _

_ What is the state of your heart? _

_ Is it concave? _

_ Are you awake? _

 

Gert didn’t know when she’d started crying.

 

Hours later, she woke up again, still in Chase’s arms. The iPod must have died, because it wasn’t playing music anymore (or maybe she’d turned it off before she fell asleep again—honestly, she didn’t know), so the room was silent, save for her, Chase, and Old Lace’s breathing. 

It felt nice to wake up next to Chase.

“Do you know what time it is?” She asked, yawning. She felt Chase smile against her shoulder.

“Late,” he said, sleep making his voice groggy. “Too late to be in bed.”

“Guess we better get up, then,” Gert said, moving to sit up. Chase groaned and pulled her back down.

“Five more minutes,” he whined. She laughed into his arm. 

“No—we need to  _ eat _ !”

“I could make an inappropriate joke right now, but,” Chase sighed dramatically. Gert picked up her pillow and hit him with it.

“Sexist, much?” 

“Is it?” Chase’s eyes snapped open, widening. “I’m sorry.”

Gert opened and closed her mouth a few times. She was  _ going  _ to say something about objectification, but with the way Chase was looking at her with those puppy eyes (and the fact that what he’d said was objectively funny and really not sexist), she just huffed out a breath.

“Forgiven. Let’s go eat breakfast.”

Chase grinned at her, and she was suddenly overcome with the need to kiss him. So she did—just a small peck on his lips, but it was enough to feel deliciously blissful, and somehow, Chase smiled even more. 

“You’re amazing,” he said. 

“I know,” she said, and for once, she believed it. 

It took another moment to disentangle herself from Chase and get dressed. Gert found her bra on the floor (they’d finally mopped up all the mud, at least), and her socks were lying neatly on her table. Everything she needed to start her day.

“Did we ever figure out the coffee maker?” Gert asked, wiggling a little to get her jeans on. She tried to hide her blush as Chase watched her stomach jiggle from the bed.

“Yeah, I think Nico finally got it working yesterday.”

“Good,” she said. “You coming?”

Chase looked at her, something indecipherable in his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.”

“Good,” she said, opening her bedroom door. “Oh. Shirt.”

“Waiting for you to notice,” Chase snorted. Gert looked down at her very bare, save for a bra, chest.

“You didn’t  _ say  _ anything?” Gert frowned. “I was just gonna walk my ass out there and put my boobs out for the world.”

“Well,” Chase shrugged. “They’re great boobs.”

Gert blushed and threw on a The 1975 tee shirt before she could say something to embarrass herself. 

“Am I good, now?” She asked before she threw open her door again. Chase gave her a thumbs up. She snorted with laughter. “See you when you get up.”

“If it’s not too late for that,” Chase said, half laughing. Gert grabbed her glasses off of the bathroom sink on her way out. 

Alex, Nico, and Karolina were all gathered in the kitchen, with a lot less tension in the air than Gert expected. Nico was laughing so hard her head was on the table, Karolina was sipping a mug of something with a smile on her face, and Alex was cackling like someone had just told the stupidest joke.

“What’s up?” Gert asked, wandering over to the coffee maker and, to her delight, finding it full.

“Mugs are above your head,” Karolina said, a little wheezy.

“Karolina just said the  _ dumbest  _ thing,” Nico gasped, tears in her eyes. Karolina tried to pout but the smile remained persistent.

“She said—she said—” Alex said between breaths. “‘Why don’t they just take the water and pour it on the desert?’”

Gert bit her lip. Sure, that was a funny statement, but clearly they’d had some context she lacked. It didn’t seem to matter, though—Nico howled with laughter again, and Karolina made some small protests that were completely drowned out.

“Above my head, you said?” Gert opened the cabinet and, sure enough, they had a small stash of mugs that mostly Karolina had picked out from shopping and the garage sales. She picked up the one that was painted with sunflowers and poured coffee in until it was mostly full. Alex and Nico settled down a little by the time that Gert got the milk in, so when she sat at the table, they seemed mostly collected again.

“So, Gert, uh,” Alex cleared his throat. “How are you feeling?”

_ After the whole Topher business?  _ She wanted to ask, but she already knew the answer.

“Fine,” she said, her voice strangled. She cleared her throat, taking a sip of her coffee. “Fine. I’m okay.”

“Really?”

“I mean, who’s fine after getting kidnapped?” Karolina laughed a little, but the eye contact she made with Gert showed the understanding. The sympathy. Gert looked away.

“Yeah. I’m—I’m okay. At least I was asleep for most of it, you know? I was just… I woke up to you guys saving me, so it’s not like I had a whole lot of time to be scared,” she lied. She had been terrified, but the knot of anxiety didn’t go away when she thought about it, so she shoved the memory down. She disguised her face with the mug again, hoping that maybe the cup in her face would at least somewhat mask her rising heart rate, the tears welling in her eyes. 

Karolina reached out and took her hand. Gert looked at her, then—the understanding in them made her feel vulnerable. Karolina knew—of  _ course  _ she knew, she’d lived it—and the idea of being known, having the true feelings of her heart laid bare for  _ anyone  _ to see… she recoiled from it. 

Molly walked in, then, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Gert frowned at her. 

“And what excuse do you have for sleeping in this late?”

“Don’t pay attention to her,” Nico said, returning her attention to her coffee.  _ Thanks, Neeks, that totally helps how I’m feeling right now.  _ “She walked in three minutes before you did.”

Molly nodded, still squinting from sleep.

“I was up late, remember?”

Gert could concede that—especially since Molly was younger, and probably needed more sleep than the rest of them—not that Gert even believed in that “eight hours of sleep a night” bullshit that was invented to maximize child labor in children (especially since child labor laws didn’t come around til long after the Industrial Revolution). Gert firmly believed that children would sleep when they needed to sleep and be awake when they needed to be awake, according to an individual’s circadian rhythm, but since capitalism demanded eight hour labor days and being awake at ungodly hours to serve the rest of the general populace, her voice was largely drowned out by the merciless bounds of corporations. 

But anyway!

“We were all up late,” Karolina grumbled, rubbing her wrist. Gert noticed that the spot where her bracelet used to rest was no longer discolored, like the tan had finally evened out after years of wearing that steel in the same place. She wondered how Karolina felt about that. Judging by the way she withdrew her hand and suddenly kept her body language closed, she might still be having some issues with her powers—especially once she considered that the reason Karolina had been up so late, besides just the fact that she’d been out, was that she’d used her powers. 

Gert could understand—on principle, she wanted to reject everything that came from anything evil. In practicality—that wasn’t possible. Not in the slightest. Especially since, if she wanted to keep that mindset, well, she’d be right on the next garbage truck along with everything else. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by Chase walking into the room. He looked devilishly attractive, as always, and somehow managed to make getting a cup of coffee—the most ordinary thing in the world—look like something magical. Gert was so focused on Chase that she almost missed Nico leaning into Karolina and giving her a quick kiss.

“Gross,” Gert mumbled, her eyes not leaving Chase. 

“This is a homophobia free zone,” Nico said, smacking her. Gert finally flicked her gaze from Chase to Alex, just out of curiosity. He didn’t even seem to have noticed the exchange—which was good, Gert guessed.

“I’m gay,” Gert said. “Checkmate.”

Nico stuck her tongue out at her. Karolina shot her a surprised glance.

“Wait for it,” Gert mumbled, practically seeing Karolina’s brain cells scramble. She  _ knew  _ Karolina knew about her bisexuality—she’d come out to her and Nico and Molly shortly after they’d run.

“Oh!” Karolina’s eyes widened in sudden recognition.

“There it is,” Nico said with a smile.

“Knew you had a brain, princess,” Gert said.

“What’s going on on this fine morning?” Chase asked, sitting down on the other side of Gert with a large mug that said something about pumpkin spice on it, filled to the brim with almost blonde coffee. 

“Oh my  _ god _ ,” Gert said, peering down at Chase’s cup. “You do  _ not  _ drink your coffee like that.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Chase asked innocently, frowning. His cute puppy eyes made Gert’s stomach go all melty. 

“It’s—it’s  _ white _ ,” Gert stuttered, trying to force her brain to comprehend this. “Coffee is  _ not  _ that color.”

Chase feigned hurt. “ _ My  _ coffee is, you  _ bully _ .”

“Anyone whose coffee is paler than a Slavic college student wearing Adidas and doing crack behind the dumpster  _ deserves  _ to be bullied.” Gert took a swig from her own mug.

“Does the Adidas count for paleness, though?” Alex interjected. “‘Cause Adidas jackets are usually black.”

“Yeah, but it’s, like—spiritual paleness. Like, you may not have something  _ physically  _ pale, but, like, pale energy is pale energy, I feel like,” Nico said. She drummed her fingers on the table. 

“In which case, Chase’s coffee is, like, Vantablack compared to that,” Molly pointed out. Gert huffed in annoyance but chose to let it go.

After a collective silence that lasted all of three seconds, Alex cleared his throat. 

“So… now that everyone’s here, I think… we need to talk again.”

Gert raised her brows, hoping they were visible over her mug tilted back over her face. “Seriously? We’ve ‘talked’ three times in three days, now. We don’t have  _ that  _ much to talk about.”

“I feel like something’s changed, though,” Alex insisted. “All of you know it, too—that whole Topher thing? He was… someone I thought I could trust.” 

Gert bit back a laugh—that would’ve just been cruel, seeing as Alex’s seemed genuinely torn up about this. But Topher had given Gert the heebie-jeebies from the start, so it wasn’t like she could say she’d been surprised. 

“And he betrayed us,” Karolina said, sympathetic. Nico frowned but thankfully said nothing. 

“Also—the fact that he was a  _ vampire _ ? Anyone?” Gert honestly still couldn’t wrap her head around that fact—sure, aliens and stuff she could believe in. Hell, in New York, they were just a part of daily life. Like, oh shit, you got robbed, and a guy with spider powers shows up to apprehend the grotesque goblin that stole your money—better call the insurance company again. But not only did Gert live in L.A., where that sort of thing didn’t really happen, but  _ vampires _ ? Those were legends, myths—whatever else you wanted to call it. The fact remained that vampires were made-up and invented by human beings… but one had nearly killed her the night before. 

It was… rattling.

“God, yeah.” Karolina’s eyes widened. “Like, first of all—”

“A goddamn  _ vampire _ !” Alex repeated. “Like—holy shit!”

“Honestly, if anyone was gonna be a vampire, here, my money was on Nico,” Chase said, earning himself a swat on his arm. 

“How in the everloving  _ fuck  _ do you get fucking  _ vampires _ , though? Like—holy shit, they’re  _ real!” _

“I mean… weirder things have happened,” Molly said. “I can lift a tank.”

“And I can fly,” Karolina added. “Not to mention basically just glowing like a pride parade in and of itself.”

“Speaking of,” Alex cleared his throat. Karolina’s eyebrows shot up.

“A pride parade?”

Gert snorted with laughter. Alex shook his head.

“No—not pride parades,” he said, furrowing his brow. “But your powers. We still don’t know anything about them.”

Karolina frowned. “I mean… yeah, you’re right. We don’t.”

“And I think after this Topher stuff… we need to move on PRIDE. Soon.” Alex rubbed his eyes. 

“What did the whole Topher business have to do with the PRIDE stuff?” Chase asked. 

“Nothing—but it did make me realize that we  _ need  _ to move, and soon. Topher was a risk that ended up biting us back, horrifically—how many of us want to take the risk that we might not all walk out of the next family reunion?” Alex’s tone was irritated, but he looked worried—not only worried, but sleep-deprived.

The silence that followed was answer enough.

It wasn’t even like the stakes had changed, regarding PRIDE—it was just that now, all of them looked at the risks they were taking much more cautiously. And suddenly, the idea of someone  _ dying  _ because of Gert taking a safer gamble than the alternative felt much tougher to swallow.

“Okay, Wilder.” Gert shook her head, setting the mug down. “You got us. What’s our next step?”

 

Well. There was something to be said for Alex’s absolutely staggering IQ. Gert would’ve rather choked on acid-coated razors and washed it down the rubbing alcohol than stand in front of her house again—let alone even opening the door and talking to Dale and Stacey.

But here they were, six gangly teenagers on the Yorkes’ front lawn like a flock of very lost, disgruntled, oversized pigeons. One of Gert’s hands was tangled with Chase’s, the other tightly clenching Molly’s. Judging by Molly’s grip, she didn’t want to be here any more than Gert did. The thought made her feel marginally better. 

“So… do we knock?” Chase asked, cutting through the thick silence. 

“There’s a key in the fern,” Gert choked, the tension in the air strangling her, leaving a heavy taste on her tongue. “Should still be there.”

“They moved it to the peony pot,” Molly reminded her, unusually sullen. Gert nodded. 

“Peonies, then.”

They all stood still for a minute before Chase startled and approached the door. His movement seemed to break a spell; the rest of them shook themselves and trailed after him (well, Gert didn’t have much of a choice, seeing as she was still holding his hand). 

“I don’t know what peonies look like, actually,” Chase said, stopping on the front porch that was absolutely covered in potted plants. Molly rolled her eyes and let go of Gert’s hand to root around in the pot filled with red peonies, extracting a very dirty house key. Gert clenched her fist in Molly’s absence. 

“Did we check if they were home, actually?” Karolina frowned, her hand twined with Nico’s from the other side of Alex. Gert squinted at the driveway.

“They’re home.”

“Then why didn’t we just… knock?” Nico raised her eyebrows. Gert pursed her lips, trying to come up with an answer.

“In case they didn’t let us in, I guess?”

Nico gave a noncommittal grunt as an answer, but Gert saw her knuckles turn a little whiter. When Molly turned the key in the lock on the front door, Gert could swear the creaking sounded like her heartbeat thundering in her ears, her mouth drying and no matter what she didn’t it wouldn’t feel normal, her clammy hands and sweat beading on the back of her neck. 

Chase gripped her hand tighter. She glanced down, startled. Of course he could tell—her hands were slicker than a Slip N’ Slide right then, but it was still a little shocking to feel that comfort so readily available. 

It almost made the electric shock of seeing Stacey’s face peer around the corner, then drop slack with a mixture of fear and surprise, bearable.

 

* * *

 

Karolina didn’t really think about how much contempt she’d held for Dale and Stacey, but, seeing them now in their kitchen—the people who’d genetically engineered her girlfriend from her mother’s DNA—well, anyone would have vision a little reddened. 

She didn’t really realize how tightly she was holding Nico’s hand to keep from smacking Dale’s teeth out of his head until she noticed the kitchen washed in a yellow glow, and Nico let out a high whine from her hand bones being rearranged. Karolina let go immediately, both embarrassed and concerned. They exchanged a glance.

_ I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry _ , Karolina tried to say. Nico half-smiled.

_ It’s okay _ , she seemed to say back. 

Karolina blew out a breath. They’d honestly have had that exchange out loud, were it not for the tense, thick air in the house at the moment. Gert and Old Lace were keeping Dale and Stacey from contacting PRIDE, Alex was interrogating them, and Chase and Molly were turning over Gert’s room looking for her meds. Gert had insisted she didn’t need them, but Molly had dismissed her, saying that they ‘might as well get them while we’re here.’ 

Karolina had been given something to do, but honestly, she’d forgotten. And Nico had already tried to cast their barrier spell, but the Staff had coughed up a gallon of water and refused, which was confusing and frustrating. Karolina didn’t really know how it worked, honestly—and at this point she’d accept it if it turned out to be magic. It’d make her head hurt less than a scientific explanation.

“Who’s Jonah?” Alex was asking Dale now. Old Lace let out a low growl. Dale had a steely glint in his eye—that was going to be a long conversation. Karolina rolled her eyes and picked up the forgotten green smoothie that Stacey had been drinking when they walked in. It tasted awful—and that was coming from someone who used to drink them regularly. 

“God, this is terrible,” Karolina said aloud, swirling the glass a little. “Did you put  _ grapes  _ in this?”

“And chard. And carrots—” Stacey was cut off by Old Lace snapping her jaws—not even in a threatening way, just a ‘I’m closing my mouth because having it open is tiring’ way, but Stacey still backed into the dishwasher with a fairly loud  _ thunk _ .

“Propranolol has been retrieved!” Chase announced his presence, carrying Molly on his back and holding aloft a prescription bottle. “Did you know that you left it in your backpack, dearest?” 

Gert’s mouth dropped open. Karolina wasn’t sure if it was the pet name, or the fact that he was carrying a hefty Molly, or the fact that his bicep was displayed at a nice angle even just from Karolina’s view, so she couldn’t really imagine what Gert was feeling at the moment. Probably a lot of arousal—which was unfortunate, considering they were all standing in the Yorkes’ kitchen. Also the fact that Gert was known to have long and heavy periods, meaning she’d still be on hers. 

“Did you at least get the rest of the backpack?” Gert finally stuttered out. Molly help up the canvas bag over Chase’s face, drooping it in front of his eyes on purpose. Karolina could see him sort of frown from behind it.

“Ta-da!”

“Good,” Gert groaned, snatching her medicine from Chase’s hand and her bag from Molly’s. Gert hesitated for a second and then pressed a quick kiss to Chase’s nose, standing on her toes. He beamed.

Karolina looked down at Nico. “You never do that to  _ me _ .”

Nico rolled her eyes. “Later.”

Karolina pouted. Nico smiled a little and looked away, red in the cheeks. It was a small triumph, at least—one that Karolina could hold her to later. 

“A little help?” He held out his hands, pointing at Dale and Stacey, who were still backed up against their counter. Right. They were  _ still  _ in the Yorkes’ kitchen, but now Alex was glaring at them. Karolina suspected the only reason Gert’s parents hadn’t bolted was because of Old Lace lying down next to them, her four inch teeth just inches from Dale’s legs. Honestly, she might’ve been asleep, but it was hard to tell. 

“Right,” Gert said, clearing her throat, and Karolina had to admit that she was pretty good at pretending she hadn’t just clearly displayed PDA in front of her parents. “Back to… this.”

“We would’ve given you your belongings if you just asked,” Dale tried weakly. Molly crossed her arms surprisingly well, considering Chase’s head was in the way. Chase shifted, moving Molly’s weight. 

“Yeah, right,” Gert said. “Because that’s very typical for you, isn’t it? To give me the things I ask for?” There was something in the way she said it that made Karolina think she was implying something more bleak than just clothes or trinkets, but she knew better than to ask.  “And why in the hell would I trust you with anything, really, knowing you’ve tried to  _ kill  _ us before?”

“We didn’t—” Stacey pleaded, but Gert held up her hand.

“You  _ shot  _ my  _ dinosaur! _ ”

“Technically, she’s ours, since  _ we  _ created her,” Dale hissed, and Karolina had to give him credit for not pissing himself when Gert turned her glare on him. She’d been on the receiving end of that before—when Karolina had asked Chase to get drinks (honestly, though? She’d deserved that). She couldn’t imagine the intensity of the hatred in Gert’s eyes now. 

Gert rolled her eyes and stomped off into another room. Molly slid off of Chase’s back and gave him a little nod, and Chase departed down the hall after her.

“And then there were four,” Alex sighed. 

“Look, I’m sure we can just work something out,” Stacey offered with a fearful smile. 

“I don’t doubt you’ve already called the rest of PRIDE,” Alex said, rubbing his temples. “But you’re going to give us information, first.”

“And why would we do that?” Dale’s expression was haughty.

“If you don’t, we’ll steal your goddamn bones and feed them to the birds,” Nico snarled, and Karolina found herself instinctively throwing out a hand to hold her back from physically throwing herself at them. Nico gave her a sideways glare, but Karolina was much more interested in keeping Nico alive and unharmed than anything else.

To Dale and Stacey’s credit, they didn’t panic nearly as much as Karolina would’ve if someone had said that to  _ her _ . 

Alex gave both of them an exasperated look. “We need information, and you need us to not tell PRIDE that you’re less than loyal to them.”

He said it slowly, almost menacingly, and Stacey’s eyes widened almost as much as Karolina’s. She hadn’t even thought of anything that they could’ve used as leverage… but maybe they were on the right track.

Dale looked like a caged animal—cautious, afraid, angry, but most of all, poised for either fight or flight. Stacey cowered behind him, her hands deceptively resting on his elbow—her knuckles were ghostly white. 

“What do you need to know?”

 

Karolina felt more uneasy pretending to be civil with Stacey than when they’d been at each others throats just minutes ago. Alex agreed to leave Nico, Karolina, and Molly to interrogate Stacey, since the three of them could pretty well defend themselves if a fight were to happen.

(Karolina didn’t want a fight to happen. She never did, really, even though her actions at, well, various points in her life might say otherwise. But somebody always got hurt, and Karolina hated it. What she hated even more was the idea of an injury that they couldn’t come back from. It’s been her biggest fear throughout this whole ordeal— _ what if something  _ **_happened_ ** _ to them?) _

Stacey now sat in an armchair, looking as wary and guarded as Karolina felt. They regarded each other like that, for a moment—a group of wild dogs interacting for the first time, unsure of what to do next, but tasting blood.

“Who’s Jonah?” Molly asked, her voice gravelly. Stacey jumped at the sound of her voice. Her water on the table was untouched, despite them having sat in silence for at least a few minutes. Karolina focused on the water beading on the outside of the glass, forcefully ignoring the situation they were in, not wanting to know any more about her… father… than she had to, but knowing that she  _ had  _ to know more, or else they’d all die. 

“He’s…” Stacey twiddled her fingers. Molly frowned, and Stacey flinched. “He’s a very powerful man.”

“Wouldn’t take too kindly to your wavering loyalties,” Nico muttered, loudly enough to be heard. 

“Yes,” Stacey said, wincing. “Which is why it has come to this.”

“To what, exactly?” Karolina pursed her lips.

“The… the rest of PRIDE are no longer working with Jonah.” Stacey mirrored Karolina’s expression. “We feel his methods are too extreme—and besides, we only ever did it for our kids, and now that he wants to hurt them—”

“Bullshit!” Molly roared, on her feet faster than Karolina could stop her. “You  _ killed  _ kids just like us, and you want to hide and cry when your own kids are put in danger?” Molly’s lip wobbled ever so slightly. “My parents  _ died  _ because of you!”

“Actually… it was Leslie that lit that fire.”

Karolina’s stomach could only drop so far, honestly. Molly flinched back, hurt and confusion in her eyes. She looked at Karolina, who was grateful simply for the fact that there was no blame to be seen—only very hot, very bright anger. Or simply her super strength. 

“So… I’m just gonna guess that my mom killed pretty much everyone that’s already dead,” Karolina said dryly, not finding the situation humorous but honestly, the other option was to break down crying, and she wasn’t going to do that in front of  _ Stacey Yorkes _ . 

Stacey looked away quickly. “That’s truer than you think, sweetie.”

Karolina thought her stomach couldn’t drop any further? She was wrong.

“...Amy?”

Even just saying her name felt like lighting a match in a room full of gas. Nico withdrew from Karolina’s side, and the loss of contact felt like a needle in Karolina’s heart.

Yet another punishment for being Leslie Dean’s daughter.

“Leslie didn’t  _ kill  _ Amy,” Stacey said quickly, probably seeing how quickly her life expectancy was dwindling down. “She just… didn’t stop Jonah from killing her. As far as we know.” 

Karolina experienced every side effect of shock in the goddamn book. Feeling like her head was plunged underwater, tears springing to her eyes unbidden, her mouth dry, her cheeks wet, her hands clammy, her skin cold, her mind numb.  _ Both  _ of her shit ass parents…  _ killed  _ Amy. Her friend. Her girlfriend’s sister. Dead. Because of Karolina’s parents.

What would Nico do with this?

Karolina forced herself not to look at Nico and instead tried to steel her nerves. 

“I know… it’s hard.”

Karolina painted her church smile on and breezed forward. That was the one thing she’d always been good at, anyhow. Dealing with all the complicated emotions that came with murderous parents? Nah. but Stepford smiling her way through the pain? She was your girl.

“So, PRIDE’s not talking to Jonah anymore. Which means  _ you  _ should be able to tell us everything we need to know.”

Stacey frowned. Clearly, she hadn’t expected this reaction—but she nodded slowly. 

“What do you need to know?”

“Everything,” Karolina said, smiling ruefully. “Starting with—what, exactly,  _ are  _ my powers?”

 

After a very long winded explanation that eventually boiled down to ‘we don’t know but we know you’re a fucking alien that relies on solar energy,’ Karolina’s head was still spinning. Her frustration threatened to boil over every second, her tears threatened to spill with every passing moment that Nico wasn’t touching her, her screams threatened to burst forth with every tense glare that Molly threw Stacey’s way.

“So, I’m an alien.” That was at least an acceptable explanation. There was no science, no bullshit way of trying to explain it all away. Aliens were real. And she was one. Cool. She’d dissect that later. “If I’m solar powered, is that why I can’t power up when I’ve been… out of the sun too long?”

She’d almost said  _ underground _ , but Stacey didn’t know where the Hostel was. 

“We think so,” Stacey said, nodding. Her eyes glittered with cold curiosity. “But we don’t know for sure. We just know that whatever your blood contains has a  _ tremendous  _ healing capability—Jonah’s blood cured Victor Stein’s brain tumor.”

Molly gasped. “That’s what happened?”

Stacey hesitated. “It had some… strange side effects, though. It triggered a period of elation, but very quickly devolved into irritability and anger after a short period of time. Almost like a hangover—if a very violent one.”

Karolina nodded, digesting. This was fine. “So… what can you tell me about my powers?”

“Honestly? Not much.” 

Karolina’s brain tripped over itself. “Really?”

Stacey nodded, grim. “The one sample we had of his blood, we were so focused on the healing capabilities—plus, we’d never seen anything like what you displayed at the dig site. The fact that your powers were a different color is interesting, to say the least. I wonder what other differences you have?” Stacey’s musings caused Karolina to shift uncomfortably—the look in Stacey’s eye made her feel like she was being prodded at on an exam table. The ruthlessly curious look in Stacey’s eye really cemented that, honestly. “The fact that you’re half human… well, who knows what Leslie is. If I was a betting woman, I’d put my money on her being one of those freakshow aliens that invaded New York a few years ago.” Stacey chuckled to herself, but stopped once she realized there was no humor in the room.

“So… you’re saying my powers could be completely different?” Karolina rolled that idea around in her head. Honestly, the idea gave her the hope that she’d been so lacking. Maybe she didn’t have to be Jonah, or Leslie, or just a combination of them. Maybe she was more than that. Something unique.

Every parent tells their children they’re special, and talented, and one-of-a-kind, but how many kids are unprecedented genetic cross-species experiments? At least Karolina knew that she probably didn’t have a matching blood type in the galaxy. 

Hm. Better not bleed to death anytime soon.

“It’s a possibility. Your powers were already visually unique—fundamentally, we just can’t be sure. Unless…” 

_ “No,” _ Karolina, Nico, and Molly all said at the same time. Stacey sighed.

“I’m just saying… if you want to know more, allowing Dale and I to perform some tests is going to be the best solution… it’s not like we’d turn everything over to Jonah.”

“We don’t know that,” Nico snapped, and suddenly her hand was gripping Karolina’s again. Seeing her protective like that warmed Karolina’s heart, even though now wasn’t really the time. “You could be a serial killer, for all we— _ oh, wait. _ ” The hissing that Nico managed to produce sounded so venomous that Karolina was surprised Stacey didn’t evaporate on the spot. To her credit, she did flinch away from the words.

Alex burst into the room, taking in the scene before him. “Did you get what you needed?”

“Yes,” Molly said before Karolina could say  _ ‘I don’t know, I need three hours and a bottle of wine to even start thinking about this.’  _ “We’re done here.”

Alex looked visibly relieved. “Good. Gert and Chase are starting the car now—we’re getting out of here before the rest of our favourite cult show up.”

The thought of seeing her mother right then made Karolina’s stomach turn leaden, so she agreed without too much resistance.

The ring of condensation around that glass of water on the coffee table stayed in the forefront of Karolina’s mind the whole way back. 

“So what did you guys learn?” Alex asked, focused on the wheel. Nico ignored him from the passenger seat, changing the song and resting her chin on her fist, staring out her window. Which meant Karolina had to answer. She caught Alex up on everything they’d learned—about her powers, about Jonah, and about her mother’s murderous habits.

Alex let out a low whistle. “All our parents really are murderers, huh?”

Nico slammed the  _ next song  _ button.

 

_ Pack yourself a toothbrush dear _

_ Pack yourself a favorite blouse _

_ Take a withdrawal slip _

_ Take all of your savings out _

 

“Yeah,” Karolina mumbled, forcing down those feelings a little longer. Just a little longer. She couldn’t break down in front of everyone.

But honestly? The fact that her mom had a role in Amy’s death, a role in Molly’s parents’ deaths—how was she supposed to look Nico and Molly in the eye again?

 

_ Forget what Father Brennan said _

_ We were not born in sin _

 

Karolina blew out a breath. “What about you guys?”

Alex’s mouth twisted into a frown. “I—I don’t really know. I can’t make sense of what Dale told us, honestly.”

“He was talking about these giants that he called the Gibborim,” Chase said from behind Karolina. 

“Like… like my church?” Karolina’s brow furrowed—that made no sense. The Gibborim weren’t a  _ thing _ , they were an idea. Her mother had taught that the Gibborim were their set of ideals, the word itself being translated from ancient Hebrew. 

Then again, when had her mother proven herself to be trustworthy these days? 

“I don’t know,” Chase admitted. “But supposedly they’re these giants that predate the Old Testament.” 

“They’re like… godlike beings. And apparently, Jonah works for them.” Alex made a left turn. 

Karolina wished her head could handle the amount of spinning it was taking. “Jonah… works for… ancient Hebrew giant-gods?”

“As much as we’ve figured out, anyways.” Chase shrugged. “You should’ve seen Gert nearly pop a vein on Dale, though.”

“It’s true,” Gert said, eating from a can of Dill pickle Pringles. “I would’ve beat his ass.”

“Dill pickle?” Molly wrinkled her nose. “Not even, like, barbecue?”

“I ran out of barbecue last week.” Gert shrugged. Molly rolled her eyes.

“Anyways,” she said. “We still don’t know anything about  _ why  _ Jonah works for them, or really, even—”

“The big question is, where are the Gibborim now?” Alex drummed his hands on the steering wheel. “And what do they want?” 

Karolina frowned. “And what does the dig site have to do with this?”

“That’s a great point,” Alex said. “If they’re looking for giants, why are they tunneling to the center of the Earth?”

Gert snorted. “You guys don’t think there’s, like, an actual Earth underneath the surface of our Earth, right?” The silence that followed morphed her expression from riciduling to seriousness. “Oh, my God, you guys—we have  _ science  _ saying that’s not possible!”

“‘Cause science makes so much sense nowadays, right?” Nico spoke for the first time, barely above a mumble.

“It does, actually.” Gert twisted her mouth into an exasperated and frustrated shape. “My connection with Old Lace? Simple psychology, easily explained by the fact that Dale and Stacey are master geneticists.” Gert pointed at Karolina. “You’re just an alien—nothing in science says aliens can’t happen, so everything that  _ seems  _ weird about you is actually totally fine and applicable to our laws of physics, as soon as we figure out why.”

“And my magic staff?” Nico tapped the Staff against her kneecap. Gert faltered a little, but blustered forwards.

“Your mom even said it—psychological connection, requires your DNA, senses your neurons and that jazz.”

“Yeah, and that’s exactly why it can summon toads and fix our electricity.”

Gert frowned. “It’s  _ science _ , Nico.”

“It’s magic, but go off,” Nico waved dismissively. “Some things just can’t be explained by science. You know—we have gods predating the Old Testament  _ and  _ aliens—I don’t get why magic is so hard to believe.”

“We’ve  _ seen _ what the inner Earth looks like!” Gert said indignantly. “If there was an ancient civilization of giants  _ or  _ gods living on Earth, we’d know.”

“Says the government conspiracy theorist.” Nico turned her attention back to the window. 

Gert snapped her mouth shut. She clearly wanted to argue more, but Nico didn’t, and a one man argument doesn’t last very long. 

“So… what’s our next step?” Chase finally asked. Karolina felt dizzy.

“Call the goddamn Avengers,” Alex said. “This is a step above us.”

Gert snorted. “Try a whole floor.”

“Think Captain Marvel’s booked?” Karolina said, sullenly remembering her banter with Gert from… she didn’t even know how long ago. It felt like forever. 

“Probably. Most A-listers are, usually,” Molly sighed. “We could call the X-Men?”

“Can we even call  _ anyone _ ?” Nico shot. “Not like any adult would ever take their time to come investigate a bunch of teenagers running away from their parents.”

“She’s kinda right,” Chase muttered. 

“I think we have to deal with this ourselves,” Karolina said, though the words felt heavy. “I’m not sure we  _ have  _ any ‘Get out of jail free’ cards.”

“If jail is my house, then at least house arrest is just regular arrest,” Gert said thoughtfully. “Like—oh no, what are you gonna do, send me home?” She was met with scattered titters. Gert mock bowed. “I’ll be here all night.”

“Can we be serious for a second, for real?” Alex asked, and Gert immediately sobered up.

“Sorry.”

Alex cracked a half-smile. “Don’t worry about it. But we do have a problem at hand and I… I don’t know how to fix this, guys.”

“Shocking.” Chase said tonelessly. Alex rolled his eyes, as he usually did in reaction to...well, Chase in general, really.  _ Boys _ ..

“This is a lot bigger than us,” Nico agreed. “But I think we have to try.”

“Or die trying, I guess,” Gert muttered. Karolina didn’t want to think about any of them dying—but honestly, that possibility was there. They were putting their lives in danger—because otherwise their parents would just blow up the  _ world _ —and even if they weren’t going up against gods and aliens and God knows what else, the risks were still great.

“Yeah,” Karolina said, swallowing heavily. “I think we have to try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so theres DEFINITELY gonna be a hiatus after this chapter. no update next week, and ill just post it when i can i guess. work is slamming me this week + im writing the exes!deanoru au which is a lot more fun to write rn so kjfsdhdsfkjhsdf this is backseating i guess. i havent forgotten abt this tho, and im gonna finish it if it KILLS me


	8. they'll put our names up in neon lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from meteorites/lights)

The last time Molly had woken up in Gert’s bed, they’d just found out about their parents. That was weeks ago, now, but Molly liked to think about it—as much as she ragged on Gert, she needed her. And as much as Gert teased and prodded her, it was born of love and concern, love that Molly could be assured was _real_ , unlike the parenting she’d received from Dale and Stacey.

The visit to her adoptive parents still had Molly rattled. They’d learned so much, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized they really hadn’t learned anything except for what they don’t know. They’d learned Karolina was _definitely_ an alien, but honestly, they could’ve guessed. As for the Gibborim—well, it all left Molly more confused than before.

Which was why she found herself padding into Gert’s room at somewhere around midnight (they’d finally all gotten watches, but Molly had lost hers), her socks no longer squishing in the mud, the walls no longer smelling like ancient tombs.

The Hostel was starting to feel like home. Molly figured if she died on this stupid quest to stop the Gibborim, her ghost would probably miss this place. And Gert. And Chase. And everyone else.

“Gert?” Molly called out, knocking softly on Gert’s door.

“Molls?” Gert called from inside, so Molly opened the door a crack.

“Hey.”

“Hey. You okay? What’s going on?” Gert squinted at Molly from where she lay on her bed, Old Lace curled up on the other half of the mattress.

“Nothing, I… I just don’t want to be by myself.”

She figured Gert would think it was because they found out that Karolina’s mother had killed her parents. Which, honestly, yeah, that stung. A lot. What stung even more was the way Karolina dodged eye contact with both her and Nico, kept their interactions short, as if she felt guilty for what her mom had done.

But the real reason was because Molly was overwhelmed. She was tired of running, tired of being angry, tired of being confused, and most of all, tired of being _alone_. So she crawled into Gert’s open arms, letting herself relax into Gert’s arms as her sister stroked her hair, pressing kisses to her forehead.

“Wanna talk about it?” Gert mumbled. Molly tightened her grip on Gert’s waist and shook her head no. Gert nodded, not pressing her. That was the _best_ part about coming to Gert like this—she never pressured Molly, never pushed her, never asked her to do or say anything she wasn’t comfortable with.

“Wanna listen to ABBA?” Gert asked, a half-smile on her face. Molly couldn’t help it—she grinned.

“ _Super Trouper_ , please,” Molly insisted as Gert reached over to her table and unplugged her iPod. Nico had gotten the electricity working again with her magic, but Molly was still wary around it. Who knew what had happened to those wires?

Gert handed her one of the earbuds and scrolled the wheel until _Super Trouper_ started playing. Molly snuggled up to Gert’s chest, resting her head on Gert’s shoulder, her sister’s hands tangling in her hair.

 

_Super trouper beams are gonna blind me_

_But I won't feel blue_

_Like I always do_

_'Cause somewhere in the crowd there's you_

 

“I can’t believe we’re gonna miss Mamma Mia 2,” Gert sighed. Molly was almost asleep, so she had to roll that thought around for a second before it clicked.

“Eh, we can go see it when it comes out—we just have to put on disguises or something.”

Gert snorted. “You’d risk getting caught for Mamma Mia 2?”

They shared a look, both knowing the answer was yes. After a few long moments of their impromptu staring contest, they both burst into giggles.

“You’re right, nevermind.” The song was approaching the chorus, and Molly felt like thinking about Mamma Mia—one of the best parts of that movie had been Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, and Julie Walters singing this song. If she was honest, it was probably why this one was her favorite ABBA song of all time.

 

_Tonight the Super Trouper lights are gonna find me_

_Shining like the sun_

_Smiling, having fun_

_Feeling like a number one_

 

“I know you love this song, but I don’t get how you like this one over _Mamma Mia_ ,” Gert teased, reigniting an argument they’ve been having for years.

“ _Super Trouper_ doesn’t have to spark a movie to be legendary,” Molly rolled her eyes. Gert grinned.

“But you just _can’t compare_ it to _‘I've been cheated by you since I don't know when—’_ ” Gert started to sing the opening bars to _her_ favorite ABBA song, but _Super Trouper_ was still playing on the iPod, so Molly shushed her loudly. Gert laughed a little and squeezed Molly’s shoulders a little tighter. When the song ended, Molly felt herself start to drift off again, and this time, Gert let her fall asleep uninterrupted.

 

When she woke up, Gert was already gone. So was Old Lace, for that matter, which wasn’t as weird, considering that Old Lace mostly either just lurked within Gert’s reaching distance or was turned loose into the woods above. Old Lace being gone wasn’t that weird—Gert, though, leaving Molly to wake up by herself? _That_ was strange.

Molly rubbed her eyes and rolled over. A green sticky note was stuck on a small box mere inches from Molly’s nose, resting on the pillow.

The box was plain and unassuming, but it was the kind where you could pop off the lid. So Molly sat up and picked it up—it was very light, which made Molly somewhat suspicious—and looked at the note.

_Happy Birthday, Molls. Had to run out. Come find me later._

_Gertie ~♡_

Wait. It was Molly’s birthday?

Molly racked her brain, trying to think of how much time had passed since they’d run. It had all blurred together… but it had to have been a month, at least, if Gert said it was her birthday. March 6th.

Fingers trembling a little now, she lifted the lid off of the box, setting it aside carefully before peeling back the tissue paper.

Folded neatly at the bottom of the box, a crocheted _something_ awaited her. Molly picked it up, and a Hello Kitty hat unfurled to greet her.

A big grin broke out on her face. “Oh, Gert,” she whispered, tugging it over her hair immediately. It fit so well she could’ve cried—Gert _must_ know how much the lack of cat hats was getting to her.

Mood now lifted so high not even Dale and Stacey could bring it down, Molly bounced from Gert’s room to the kitchen, hardly noticing the lights dimmed down until she stepped in and Karolina’s pink glow immediately lit the whole room.

_“Karolina!”_ Everyone groaned. Karolina glowed even brighter.

“Sorry!” She squeaked meekly. “I just got so excited…”

“I know,” Nico said leaning over to rest her elbows on Karolina’s thighs, a lovey dovey look in her eyes. Molly peered around for Gert—and spotted her standing up from behind the table. Old Lace was behind her, and _aww_ , they’d put a party hat on top of her head.

“Surprise,” Gert grumbled. “Kar had to ruin it.”

Chase flicked the light switch with a shy grin on his face. “Same effect, right?”

Molly beamed—not only had Gert remembered her birthday when _she_ hadn’t, but everyone else did, too?

Suddenly, Gert’s speaker lit up and began _blasting_ a familiar song. Alex’s head peeked from behind the refrigerator.

“Happy birthday!” He shouted, smiling. Gert and the others repeated it just before Molly recognized the song.

“Oh my God, you guys,” she giggled, absolutely ecstatic. Gert started bouncing to the beat.

“ _I got chills_

_They're multiplying_

_And I'm losing control_

_Cause the power you're supplying—”_ Gert sang loudly, Molly belted, but they didn’t expect Nico to leap up onto a chair and shout, _“It's electrifying!”_

The rest of them just pretty much yelled the chorus, a raucous room of teenagers all giddy and happy for the first time in a while as they celebrated their favorite sister’s birthday! Molly did consider herself to be their sister, and since everyone treated her like one, it worked out. Her cheeks hurt from how much she was grinning.

_“You better shape up, cause I need a man_

_And my heart is set on you_

_You better shape up, you better understand_

_To my heart, I must be true_

_Nothing left, nothing left for me to do”_

Gert opened the fridge and removed a cake (a _cake)_ from the uppermost shelf. She made a shooing motion with her free hand at Nico, who was dancing on the table, Karolina’s hands outstretched less than a foot away in case she fell. Nico stuck her tongue out at her but hopped off the table with a shouted, “Karolina, catch me!”

“Did you guys get her drunk, or something?” Molly asked aloud as Gert set the cake down.

“No,” Karolina said, stumbling a little from the weight, glowing a little more. Nico clung to her neck like a baby koala. “I think we’re all just relieved to have something else to think about.”

“Anyways!” Gert said, before that train of thought could kill the mood. Although honestly, _nothing_ was gonna kill the mood with _You’re The One That I Want_ still playing in the background.

 

_If you're filled with affection_

_You're too shy to convey_

_Meditate in my direction_

_Feel your way_

 

“Happy birthday, Molls,” Gert said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Do you like the hat?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Molly said, grinning and hugging her,because _honestly_ , Gert was the best sister _ever_ .  She knew Molly so well it hurt sometimes, but she was always there, and even now, just _looking_ at her filled Molly with so much happiness she felt as though she were full to the brim with it.

“Okay, Bugbear,” Gert laughed. “Make a wish.”

“We don’t have any candles,” Chase said. “But I guess you can pretend.”

“I don’t have to pretend.” Molly punched his arm. “I have my whole family right here—I don’t need candles.”

“Awwww,” Karolina cooed. “How sweet.”

“Make a wish, bitch,” Nico said. “I wanna eat cake.”

Karolina frowned. “Don’t be rude.”

“She said we were her family, right? This is how sisters act.”

“I wish—”

“You can’t say it out loud!” Gert exclaimed. “That _ruins_ it.”

Molly pouted. Sure, Gert had been saying the same thing every year for as long as she could remember, but she just really wanted everyone to know how much she loved them, loved this, loved being a family.

_I wish this would never have to end_ , she thought. _I wish we could just all be happy always and never have to worry about anything ever again_.

_We could all die_ , the dark voice in the back of her mind said. _We could all die tonight_.

What a shitty birthday present that would be.

Molly leaned over and comically blew on the white frosting, pretending that there were candles. The rest of them burst into applause.

 

_You're the one that I want (you are the one I want)_

_Oo-oo-oo, honey_

_The one that I want (you are the one I want)_

_Oo-oo-oo, honey_

_The one that I want (you are the one I want)_

_Oo-oo-oo, the one I need (one I need)_

_Oh, yes, indeed (yes indeed)_

 

“What flavor is this?” Molly asked as Gert began slicing the cake. “And when did you get it?”

“This morning,” Gert grunted, driving the knife downwards with more force than strictly necessary. “And chocolate.”

Molly was already smiling, but she would’ve even more, then.

“Dish up!” Alex clapped her on the back. “We have presents after cake.”

“You’re letting me have cake for breakfast?” Molly pretended to be shocked, her eyes growing as wide as saucers. Alex laughed.

“It’s your birthday, Molls. Live a little.”

“Booze! Booze! Booze!” Nico shouted.

“Molly is _not_ drinking Karolina’s shitty vodka, least of all at eight in the morning.”

Karolina pouted. “It’s not shi—”

“Boo,” Nico said. “Booooo.”

“Just because the rest of us are alcoholics doesn’t mean we can’t raise Molly better than that,” Chase said. Nico grumbled some inaudible reply, but Molly felt grateful for his weighing in—alcohol wasn’t something Molly wanted to mess with, not really.

The cake was _divine_ , though—the perfect blend of sweetness to not, perfectly moist, and the frosting was so rich she thought it might melt in her mouth.

“Maybe I just haven’t had cake in a long time,” Gert mumbled around her mouthful. “But this is really good.”

The rest of them gave some varying exclamations of agreement. They were silent for a while, all of them busy with their cake. At some point Nico had moved from Karolina’s arms to sitting on her shoulders, which was only surprising in that Karolina didn’t fall over, and Nico’s plate rested on Karolina’s head. Karolina herself just held hers, probably unwilling to sit down. Gert had her legs stretched across Molly’s lap, leaning back against Chase’s shoulder—Molly didn’t miss the sappy looks they exchanged every few minutes. Alex sat on the other side of Molly, having a conversation with Chase about… something. Molly wasn’t really paying attention.

Once they all finished, Gert stood up and collected trash. Normally, she wouldn’t, deeming it a sexist chore that she would not be made to perform, but today she must have made an exception for Molly.

“Presents now!” Chase said excitedly, and, before Molly could blink, disappeared around the corner. He came back almost faster than he left, holding one small box no larger than Molly’s fist, and a large, flat box a little wider than Chase himself.

“Small one first,” Molly said, making grabby hands as soon as Chase got close enough. Chase pouted.

“The big one’s miiiine,” he said in a sing-song voice, but handed the small box over.

“That one’s from me and Nico,” Karolina said, raising her hand. “Nico’s is on top.”

Gert muttered something about that being unlikely, but Molly paid her no mind as she opened the box after carefully untying the gold, glittery ribbon. There were two small objects, both individually wrapped. Molly lifted up the one on top, which was longer and heavier than the other, and shucked the tissue off.

It was a bright blue, iridescent folding knife carved with roses. Molly’s jaw dropped.

“Look in the tissue again,” Nico said eagerly, and Molly obeyed. She withdrew two sets of simple brass knuckles, both pink and cheery. Nico smiled, clearly proud of herself.

“You have super strength, right? You could knock some real heads with these.”

Gert rolled her eyes. “I doubt two pieces of plastic are gonna do much for a supernaturally strong punch, but whatever.”

Molly beamed. The knife was gorgeous, and much more mature than she’d expected, which was way better than if Nico had gone out of her way to get one that was, like, pink and glittery. This was still cute, but in a much more dangerous way.

“Thanks, Nico.”

“No prob, Molls.” Nico held out her hand for a high five, which Molly gladly accepted, despite having to reach above Karolina. Karolina puffed out a breath.

“Mine next.”

Molly agreed, so she opened the other package. Inside, there were just two simple bracelets—one was a leather braid, woven with varying rainbow colored strings and a single, purple cat charm; the other was woven paracord dyed varying shades of pink, purple, and red, with a singular stripe of white in the center.

“Is this… the lesbian flag?” Molly asked holding it up. Karolina beamed.

“Yep. Gert had to show me how to weave it, but… yeah. Do you like it?”

Molly was halfway between crying and hugging her, but seeing as Karolina might fall over if she tried to hug her and Molly was never one for crying of joy, she settled for grinning right back.

“Thanks, Kar. I love it.”

Karolina just gave her that look of understanding—of solidarity, Molly realized. They were not alone. In both the lesbian way, and the ‘our parents are evil murderers’ way.

“My turn!” Chase said excitedly, and Molly couldn’t even fault him for being earnest.

“Slide it over,” Molly said, leaning over the table and stretching out her hands to the box that was just beyond her reach. Chase pushed it and she grabbed it, eager to see what was to _heavy_ in this one.

She opened the box. Inside lay… some round, flat _thing_.

“Chase?” Molly asked. Alex peered over her shoulder, curiosity probably piqued by her concern.

“Is that a _roomba_ ?” Alex asked loudly. Molly blinked and, _oh my God_ , it was. A roomba. Chase had built a roomba.

Chase scratched the back of his neck. “Yes?”

Molly squealed in delight. “Where did you even get the stuff to build this?”

Chase flushed. “The car, spare parts we found when we were cleaning, some garage sale stuff I picked apart… Nico’s Staff helped, too.” Gert nudged him with her elbow, a big smile on her face.

Molly looked at Nico, who had a smug, shit-eating grin on. “You knew?”

“Of course. Turn it on.”

Chase smiled. “Nico’s magic, ah… gave it some unexpected qualities.”

Turned out ‘unexpected qualities’ meant playing a really shitty 8-bit ‘Happy Birthday’ tune the first time Molly turned it on, being charged by the amount of bugs it vacuumed up, and making cute little chiming noises whenever someone talked to it.

“The fact that this thing can eat junebugs and not need a charger is kinda scary,” Gert said.

_Bleep bloop_ , the roomba said cheerily.

“Does it matter if the junebugs are alive?” Molly speculated, frowning. She wasn’t sure how much she liked having a carnivorous roomba.

“Does it have to be junebugs?” Chase said as it drove near his feet.

_Bloop_ , it said.

“I take that as a no.” Chase frowned. He backed up ever so slightly. The roomba continued munching on the corpses of whatever roaches had been in that corner of the kitchen, humming merrily. “Is it programmed to hunt out meat or does it just do that?”

“It just Does That, I think.” Nico flicked a cake crumb onto the floor. Molly could _hear_ the capital letters for emphasis.

“I’m gonna name it Pancake,” Molly declared after staring at it for a moment. Gert made some sort of acknowledging noise.

“That’s cute,” Karolina said, eyeing Pancake—who was still creeping towards Chase’s toes—warily.

_Beep Boop_ , Pancake said, delighted. Molly, though she still had a lingering fear of her new bug-eating pet, was glad that it was so goddamn _cute_. Chase had outdone himself.

“Thanks, Chase.” Molly hugged him. “I love it.”

“I’m glad someone does,” Chase mumbled. “Watch it—I think Gert might try to break it while you’re not looking.”

“She wouldn’t,” Molly whispered conspiratorially. “Because she _loves_ me.”

Chase laughed. Gert shot them a glare.

“I do love you, Molls—unfortunately, I hate _it_.”

Molly beamed and pulled Gert into their hug, too.

After Alex had promised his present was driving lessons (driving lessons! How cool!), the tone turned a tad more serious as the cake was eaten, the presents opened, and the looming promise of death still hung in the air.

“So… we agree, right? We have to do something, and _soon_.” Alex rubbed his hands together. Gert frowned.

“But when? We just don’t really _know_ anything, still, despite that _whole_ trip we made—” Gert put her face in her hands, taking off her glasses and setting them on the table.

“I don’t want to think about this right now,” Molly said, shrugging her shoulders inwards, trying to keep the worst of the bitterness from her voice. The rest of them agreed softly.

“Hey—why don’t we go get ice cream or something?” Gert offered, nudging her shoulder. “Just the two of us.”

“That sounds awesome.” Molly beamed. Chase pouted.

“Bring me back something,” he said. Gert rolled her eyes.

“I’ll go grab the keys—get dressed, Molls.”

Molly obliged, departing the kitchen in a half-run, listening to the eager chatter of everyone else still behind and the hum of Pancake on the floor, clutching Karolina’s and Nico’s presents in her arms. It was nice, that she could leave the room and come back and know that they’d still be there. It was nice to not have to cling to them like they might disappear in her hands.

She dressed quickly in her favorite pair of overalls and a pink tee shirt underneath, barely glancing at the rest of her room but stopping by the window, as always. It was the reason she’d picked this room—out of all of the bedrooms, Molly was pretty sure this one had originally been a basement room, and it was the only one with a window. Sure, the glass was shattered and vines draped over where the panel would’ve been, but it allowed her a breath of fresh air every now and then. Sometimes, if the breeze blew just right, she could smell the morning dew. Of course, it meant dirt was _always_ creeping in, somehow, but now that she had Pancake, there could be worse problems.

She pulled on her shoes and her new bracelets, and, after a moment of hesitation, slipped the brass knuckles Nico had given her into her pockets. Better safe than sorry.

Gert knocked on her door. When Molly opened it, she could see Gert had also gotten dressed—wearing a simple green romper and one of Chase’s jackets. Old Lace stood behind her.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” Molly said, tucking some more hair into her hat. Sure, it was hot as hell outside, but she wasn’t going to be caught dead in public without her new hat on. “Is Old Lace coming?”

“Of course,” Gert said, scratching Old Lace’s chin. “She loves ice cream.”

“Are we going through a drive-thru?” Molly frowned.

“Sure,” Gert said, holding out her hand for Molly to take, and they began walking towards the Hostel exit. “Might as well. It’s just ice cream, right?”

Molly pouted. “I was hoping to go to the sit-down one off of Florence,” she sighed dramatically, hoping against hope that Gert might actually say yes.

Gert’s expression softened. “Molls, that’s—”

“Too close, I know,” Molly said melodramatically. “I was hoping… just this once…”

Gert twisted her mouth into an I’m-mad-at-you-but-I-love-you-too-much-to-do-anything-about-it face. “...Fine.”

Molly squealed in delight.

“But _only_ because it’s your birthday!”

“I know,” Molly said, beaming. “But it’s Area 51 ice cream!”

Gert frowned. “O.L., I guess you have to stay here.”

Old Lace huffed.

“I know. Make sure Chase doesn’t get into any trouble.”

Old Lace tottered off to go find Chase, and Gert grumbled something about bad decisions, but they left and got in Gert’s car. Gert fired up the engine, and off they drove—back in the direction of home.

Well, not home. PRIDE.

 

The ice cream parlor was small and quaint, as it had always been. Molly surveyed the tile floor and cute little alien mobile hanging from the ceiling before ordering a sundae with one scoop of cherry and one scoop of vanilla. Gert gave her a look that probably meant ‘ _it’s your birthday, and you’re eating the same thing you’ve been getting for ten years?’_ but just ordered a lemon sorbet for herself. They reserved to bring back some Dairy Queen for everyone else, since the scoops would just melt before they could get out the door of the parlor. Molly eats her ice cream, staring out the window and hardly paying attention to Gert—until she slams the newspaper down on the table, just in front of Molly’s nose.

“Since when do you read the news?” Molly asked, but stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what Gert was pointing at.

 

**LOCAL CHARITY GROUP SPONSORED DIG SITE SOON TO CUT RIBBON**

 

Molly and Gert looked at each other.

“PRIDE?” Molly asked.

“The dig site,” Gert confirmed grimly. “The paper’s a few days old. The ribbon cutting is happening tomorrow.”

Molly felt the stone drop in her stomach. _Tomorrow?_

“What’s happening tonight, then?” Molly’s voice was smaller than she wanted. She wanted to be brave. Gert shrugged, nonchalant, but she was biting her lip. Nervous.

“I don’t know,” Gert admitted. “But it has to be big, right? They’ve been working on this for… years. As long as I can remember.”

Molly found herself nodding, instinctively agreeing. Whatever was happening tomorrow was starting tonight. Maybe it had already started. Maybe they were already set on their course of destruction, and nothing they did now would matter. Molly hoped that wasn’t the case.

“We have to get back and tell the others,” Gert said, grabbing the car keys from her table. Molly couldn’t have sprang to her feet faster.

 

“Oh so that fighting thing, we’re doing that now? Like— _now_ now?” Chase’s thumbs twiddled on the kitchen table. All of them were seated there, in the only room equipped to seat all of them, after Gert called an emergency meeting. ‘Called’ meaning ‘burst into their rooms individually with a dinosaur and yelled at all of them to meet in the kitchen.’ Molly figured the end result was about the same, though.

“Well, not _now_ , you idiot,” Nico said. “Are you currently holding Karolina’s mom in a chokehold?”

Chase frowned. “I guess not.”

“But we have to do this, and soon,” Karolina said tiredly. “We can’t ignore this.”

“Karolina’s right,” Alex said, restlessly drumming his fingers on the table. “This is huge.”

“This is _bigger_ than us,” Gert protested, and Molly found herself agreeing. What could they do? “If our parents are summoning Old Testament giants—don’t you guys think it’s time to fold our hands?”

Alex shook his head, vehement. “No. I don’t.”

Gert looked to Chase, who looked away from her. Even Nico, who’d dragged her heels the hardest at fighting their parents, was training her eyes on the floor.

“Who else is going to save the world, Gertie?” Chase asked softly. Gert glared at him, but it was the kind of glare that was defeated, brimmed with tears, and desperate.

“A—anyone,” Gert choked, and Molly realized she was crying. “Iron Man. Captain America. Fucking Thor, for all I care. I just…” Gert looked from Molly, to Alex, to Nico, to Karolina, and finally, to Chase. Molly saw her eyes stay on Chase as she continued, weak, tired: “I just don’t want to lose any of you.”

“You _won’t_ ,”  Karolina said, but her voice wavered, and it didn’t sound like she believed it. Molly wondered how long she’d been thinking about this very thing.

“It doesn’t _matter_ ,” Alex said. “I’d die a hundred times before I let my parents tear the Earth open from the inside out.”

A heavy, hollow silence hung over the room. Alex was right, of course, but the idea of any of them _dying,_ which was a _very real possibility…_ Molly didn’t know how she’d handle it if they didn’t all make it out of tonight.

“Are we agreed, then?” Nico asked, looking back and forth between Karolina and the rest of them. They all made various noises of agreement. Gert sniffled.

“I guess,” Gert said, voice wobbling. “Alex is right, anyways, and you know I’d _never_ say that if it wasn’t true.”

Alex cracked a smile. “We know.”

Gert offered a small smile back. “We’re in this, right? Ride or die.”

The _‘or die’_ felt like the final nail in their collective coffin being hammered down, but Molly had to give the rest of them credit—they looked pretty brave for a group of terrified, ragtag teenagers who now had to save the world. Again.

“There’s no one else I’d rather die with, at any rate,” Chase said—it was addressed to all of them, but he was looking at Gert.

“Ditto,” Karolina said. “You guys… didn’t have to come back for me. And now we’re all going back together.”

“Don’t get poetic,” Nico grumbled, but Molly saw how she scooted a little closer to her, got a little more snuggly. “You make me think you’re really not gonna come back.”

“Speaking of,” Alex cleared his throat. “We need a plan.”

Molly frowned. “How do we make a plan when we don’t even know what we’re going up against?”

Alex grinned. “By making a thousand backup plans, of course.”

 

They spent the next three hours making a thousand and _one_ plans. That’s an exaggeration—but to Molly, it _felt_ like it. Especially since, in most of the plans, Molly’s whole job was to use her super strength until she passed out. At least Karolina could relate—she’d been saddled with ‘glowing, flying alien,’ which was marginally less useful than being able to throw a ten-ton truck.

Finally, Alex released them for a few hours before they were to depart for the dig site at approximately eight that night. Molly stomped off to her room almost before Alex let her go—she was _tired_ , and it was her _birthday,_ and she might die on her goddamn birthday.

That would be so sad—Molly decided not to think about that.

Her face had barely hit her pillow before she heard a knock on her door. Not even bothering to lift up her head, she grumbled, “Come in.”

Gert opened the door. “Hey, Molls.”

“Hey, Gertie Guts,” Molly said in reply. Gert sighed.

“How are you holding up?”

Molly rolled over, allowing Gert to sit on the side of the bed, which she did. “How do you think?”

“Poorly,” Gert laughs. “The rest of us are barely keeping it together, but _you_ —”

“I can handle it,” Molly said defensively. She couldn’t, really, but the last thing she wanted right then was to be treated like a child.

Gert’s eyes softened. “I know,” she murmured, and Molly immediately felt bad. “You’re so grown-up now.”

Maybe Molly didn’t want that answer. Maybe Molly wanted an excuse to be upset, so she wouldn’t have to tell Gert that she was buckling under the weight of what the _world_ expected of her. She rolled over again, her face in the pillow, and Gert rested her hand on Molly’s back.

Molly mumbled through the pillow: “I don’t _want_ to be,” she admitted. “I’m scared, Gert. Really, really scared.”

Gert rubbed her hand in a small circle between Molly’s shoulders. “It’s okay to need help, sometimes. And you don’t have to do this alone.”

Molly nodded, slow, teary. It felt nice to have Gert comforting her, like always, and her bed was so warm, and it was easy to forget things for a little while, in here, with the sunlight streaming down on her bed. She closed her eyes. And then, she was asleep.

 

* * *

 

Gert closed the door to Molly’s room behind her, quietly, sighing. It hadn’t taken much to get Molly to fall asleep, once she’d calmed down—in fact, Gert was pretty proud of her big sister abilities. Even though no big sister should have to lead her little sister to the slaughterhouse.

But what could she do? Hide Molly away, unconscious, and fight the PRIDE without her?

Actually… that wasn’t a bad idea.

Gert was so lost in her own train of thought that she didn’t notice Chase until she bumped straight into his chest. Which is odd, because lately she’s been hyper-aware of Chase—like, _way_ more than usual. Maybe it’s because she’d kissed him way more than friends should kiss each other. Maybe it’s because she wanted to bone him again. Maybe she was just a hormonal teenager and none of this would matter in twenty four hours anyways, because they’d all be dead or… Gert can’t even think of a different outcome. They’d all be dead in twenty four hours.

Because… Gert was a cynicist. And she couldn’t see them winning the fight against PRIDE—despite the optimism that everyone else was showing, she could see it in their eyes, and she didn’t think any of the others believed they’d survive this, either. Which only made her feel worse about Molly.

But—Chase.

“Hey,” Chase said, nervous. Gert didn’t look at the way he licked his lips, or the way his biceps moved, or the way his shirt looked slightly damp—sweat, perhaps? Was he working out?

“H—hi,” Gert stuttered.

“Did you get to take your meds?” Chase asked. “Are they helping?”

“Considering all we’ve talked about today is that we’re all going to die… I don’t think I’ve had a large enough sample size to bring back a conclusive answer. Check back in a week.” She said it dryly, but not unkindly. He actually laughed a little, which startled Gert—usually that kind of joke would get her an odd glance and no further commentary.

“Yeah… that must suck,” Chase said sympathetically.

“Understatement of the century.”

Gert looked up at Chase, then, and their eye contact felt charged. Heated. Like there was something bubbling under the surface—and there _was_ , Gert was _so_ tempted to ask what they were, ask what two people who’ve openly admitted to liking each other _can_ be, at the end of the world. Were they dating? Did it matter, if they weren’t going to be alive in twenty four hours?

“What are you doing outside of my room, then?” Chase asked, clearing his throat, and it was only then that Gert realized she was even near his room. Had her feet carried her here, since they’d had nowhere else to go? Karolina and Nico were probably railing each other into the mattress since the world was going to end tomorrow, and Gert couldn’t _really_ blame them, or else be the worst hypocrite ever—but it did mean Gert wasn’t in the mood to listen to that, and since her room was right there next to Nico’s… Chase’s room was the next choice, Gert guessed.

“Just put the baby down for a nap,” Gert said, gesturing towards Molly’s room. Chase gave her one of his trademark lopsided smiles, and yeah, okay, she might be a little gone for him.

“Ah.” Chase looked almost disappointed, and Gert panicked— _shit, I fucked that up, shit, shit_ —

“Maybe I wanted to see you, too, though,” she said with a smile that more than likely came off as flirtatious. Chase _grinned_ at her, looking absolutely infectious with affection. Gert pretended to ignore the thrill that the look sent through her stomach, trying (and probably failing) to keep her calm exterior.

“I’m glad you did,” Chase said, the light in his eyes dying a little, and Gert was about to ask what was wrong, when she remembered: they’re probably going to die tonight. Seeing Chase before she died wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, she supposed—especially if it went anything like the last time they ‘talked’ before the end of the world.

But the idea of dying didn’t feel as invigorating as it did last time—if anything, she’d much rather _not_ be the type of person that gets off every time they think they’re about to die. So instead of pushing Chase against the wall and kissing him until their lips bruised, she let her voice soften as she said: “Me, too.”

Chase looked down at her sort of strangely. Gert almost asked what was wrong, but the words morphed in her mouth into something else, something she didn’t mean to say but said anyways: “Do you want to just talk?”

Chase looked relieved. “Yeah, I do. Wanna come in?”

“Yeah,” Gert said, her throat suddenly dry. Why was having sex with Chase so easy, but the idea of actually being _intimate_ so… hard?

_Because he’ll know you,_ Gert thought. _He’s going to learn the creases of your heart that you’ve never shown to anyone in the world; and he won't run away._

Yeah. Scary thought.

But Gert walked into Chase's room anyways, tiptoeing over the smooth wood beneath her feet and lying down on Chase's bed. She pretended not to see the look of surprise on his face.

“Sorry,” she said. “The idea of dying tonight, knowing maybe nothing we’ll do is going to matter, the fact that it'll be our _parents_ that _murder_ us… that doesn't exactly make me feel horny right now.”

“Yeah.” Chase cleared his throat and looked away. “Totally get that.”

Gert sat up a little as Chase came over and curled up next to her on the bed. He laid his head in her lap wordlessly, and Gert found herself carding her hands through his hair. They stayed that way for a long moment, just drawing comfort from the other's presence.

“I really don't want to think about how we're going to die, though,” Chase whispered.

“Then we can talk about something else. Whatever you want.” Gert hoped her presence and whatever she might be able to say to him would make him feel better. Chase looked thoughtful and distant.

“There is… something I should tell you, I think, but I don't really want to think about that either.”

“You don't have to--" Gert began, but Chase shook his head.

“I _want_ to, Gert, just--just in case I don't ever get to say it out loud.”

“Don't say that,” Gert whispered, too afraid of what was behind those words.

Chase's eyes on her softened. “Okay. But I’m gonna tell you anyways.”

Gert nodded. “Okay. I’ll listen.”

Seemingly satisfied, Chase continued: “It's, um… my dad.” Gert’s hands clenched unbidden. She’d always hated Chase's dad, but from the way Chase's voice broke… she didn't even know what Victor Stein had done, but she hated him even more. Still, she said nothing as Chase rambled on. “He, um, he used to hit me. And my mom.”

Gert’s heart stopped. Chase… had been _hit._ As a _child_ . The thought was disgusting, appalling, and a hundred other horrible words Gert couldn't even name because the only thing running through her head was _I’m so fucking proud of Chase’s mom for shooting that bastard._ Judging by the ocean of complicated emotions on Chase's face, she wouldn't _say_ that, especially because she doesn't want her sort-of boyfriend to have to deal with the weight of his mother killing someone, even when that someone was his shitty abusive dad.

“It… it's been a while since he has, though. I got bigger and stronger, and he didn't try to hurt me for a while. I don't know if he hit my mom at all, but I don't think he hurt her, either. We thought… we thought he had changed.”

“But he didn't,” Gert said, remembering that night. The night where she missed Chase's call, and Karolina had picked her up (also the night she finally put all the pieces together and realized Karolina wasn't into Chase at all, but that was beside the point), and they'd driven to Chase’s—only to find him bloody and distraught because his father had thrown him through a fucking window.

Chase nodded. “...Yeah.”

Gert looked down at him, searched his eyes, saw nothing but hurt and conflict. On the one hand, Chase _wanted_ to be rid of his father, wanted to escape from him and be safe from the pain. On the other… there was a still a scared boy inside him that just wanted his father, and didn’t understand why someone that was supposed to make him feel safe and loved was _hurting_ him.

It made Gert angry. Chase— _nobody,_ but especially Chase—didn’t deserve this, deserve to be hurt for no reason at all other than to put him down and make him feel small. It made Gert wish she could hurt Victor Stein any more than he already was.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she lied. It wasn’t okay. “It’s a really common reaction to abuse to still want that person to love you.” Was that the wrong thing to say? Gert didn’t know, but she reverted to science and facts when she didn’t know how to navigate emotional territory. “It doesn’t make you less abused, you know? Like… you were still hurt, and it’s not your fault at all—you didn’t _deserve_ that, Chase. You _didn’t._ You were just a kid.”

Chase nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

Gert could sense that he didn’t _really_ believe her, but as she opened her mouth to keep arguing, she saw the tiredness in his eyes, saw the way his shoulders sagged, saw the way he dodged eye contact and looked like he’d rather talk about anything else. So she changed her mind and just said, “Okay.”

Chase looked up at her. “Really?”

“Really,” Gert sighed. “Thanks for trusting me with this.”

Chase wrapped his arm around her, and Gert sighed into his shoulder. “Yeah. I just wanted someone to know, I think.”

“I’m always here for you,” Gert said without really thinking about it. And then, thinking about it: “Always.”

“I know,” Chase said, laying his head on her shoulder. For once, Gert felt truly at peace, and she decided she didn’t need a label for whatever they were doing—they kissed sometimes, and held each other through their nightmares, and that was enough for her.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i havent forgotten abt this! its just difficult to find time to work on my longer projects, now :P


	9. shot in the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from heart of a graveyard/demon hunter)

Nico would really, really rather be anywhere else than back at the dig site—not only because she knew that they were probably all going to die because of their stupid, stupid heroics, but because Karolina looked absolutely _terrified,_ and Nico hated herself for being completely unable to do anything about it except grip her hand tightly. She wanted to take Karolina back to the Hostel and hold her, run her fingers through her hair and whisper that everything would be okay, that they’d make it through this. But then Nico would be lying, and it wouldn’t really help, since Karolina was probably in the middle of a panic attack over being back at the site where she was kidnapped from them. _For_ them. The thought still made Nico nauseous—that she just tucked tail and ran at the first sign of trouble, leaving Karolina to die.

_ Not this time. Never again. _

The car ride to the dig site was thick and heavy with oppressive silence, like a blanket suffocating each of them. They were going to die. Their parents were going to kill them, and then the world would end. They hadn’t trained, they hadn’t prepared, and there was nothing that could stop this from happening— but if they were going to die anyway, why not give it a shot? 

“Do we even know what they’re doing?” Karolina asked, her voice small. “Maybe it’s not awful.”

“Whatever they were digging up was evil, remember?” Gert sounded tired, so tired. “Molly’s parents  _ died  _ trying to stop it.”

“Molly’s parents died because of  _ my mother _ ,” Karolina snapped. Nico winced—her bringing this up couldn’t have meant anything but guilt gnawing at her, and Nico didn’t know what to say to make her feel any better. 

“Karolina—” Molly began, clearly wanting to argue with her, but the problem was, Karolina wasn’t wrong. 

“We’ve  _ all  _ lost people.” Gert’s voice was wholly unsympathetic, and it made Nico wonder who she might be talking about. “Doesn’t change what we have to do.”

Karolina looked like she might blow a fuse, but the tears in her eyes indicated she was turning that explosion inward. Nico took her hand in one of hers, stroking her thumb over Karolina’s palm in circles, hoping, hoping that it would help. 

“Whatever,” Karolina eventually grumbled, only half of her malice behind it—honestly, Nico was a little surprised Karolina could summon any venom in the first place. 

“Enough,” Alex said decisively. “Turning on each other isn’t going to help.”

“For once, Wilder is right,” Chase said, sounding like the words were being clawed out of him with a dirty fish hook. “Arguing isn’t going to do anything, and we have to have each other’s backs to even  _ kind of  _ have a chance at beating our parents.”

The somber silence that filled the car was answer enough. They’d all die—everyone knew it. Nico never really thought she’d live this far, anyways. Maybe she was overdue. 

But then Karolina shifted against her, stirring some small spark that Nico had thought long dead, and as she thought about her hand in Karolina’s, her head on her shoulder, arms entwined and heartbeats not in sync, per se _ ,  _ but close together, rhythmic and steady, falling into a pattern, she was struck with a realization. 

_ I don’t want to die.   _

Nico squeezed Karolina’s hand. Karolina squeezed back. 

It felt comforting.  

“Okay guys, we need a game plan,” Nico said, leaning forward in her seat (still not letting go of Karolina). Gert and Chase looked at her a little strangely, but she made eye contact with Alex in the mirror, and saw something she hadn’t seen from him in a while—understanding. Respect. 

...It felt nice, to have that from him again. Maybe there was something worth salvaging in their friendship, after all.

“What do we even have to work with?” Karolina asked, her voice uncertain and unsteady, but above all, trusting. She  _ trusted  _ Nico. The thought warmed her. 

“We have our powers that… that we don’t exactly understand, yet,” Nico offered, hesitating. She saw the way Gert’s nose scrunched, the way Molly glanced nervously between her and Karolina, fear and uncertainty in her eyes. The way Chase looked disbelieving. Even Karolina, ever supportive, ever trusting, ever believing—looked cautious of Nico’s next words. 

Still, the only person that didn’t seem fazed was Alex. 

“I—I know we don’t have anything to go off of. We got our asses kicked the last time we fought our parents, and—and yeah, that’s probably going to happen again. But we learned a lot when we fought them, right? And we’ve learned since then.”

Nico bit her lip. She wasn’t done, yet, but the others’ reactions were starting to make her nervous. 

“Well, we know that Kar’s an alien,” Molly offered. Nico tried to convey through her eye contact how grateful she was for that addition. 

“Yeah. Yeah, we know a little bit more about Kar. And we know that my Staff has more power than just making snowflakes.”

“And Old Lace doesn’t like beef,” Gert quipped, her humor dry and dripping with sarcasm. “Nico, face it—we haven’t changed at all. We haven’t grown. We’re just the same scared kids that don’t know anything.”

“Gert—” 

“ _ Au contraire,  _ Gert,” Chase said, suddenly wickedly grinning, and Nico didn’t know if his expression made her more or less nervous. She opened her mouth to ask  _ what  _ he was planning, but before she could say anything, he picked up his backpack from at his feet, and Nico twists to see he held up his Fistigons. 

“Your—your Fistigons?” Molly asked. 

“New and improved!” Chase said proudly, like a golden retriever with a just fetched chew toy in its mouth. “Twice as precise, three times as hot, five times as deadly.” 

“Did you remember to adjust for recoil this time?” Gert asked, amused and a little disbelieving. 

Chase’s smile faltered for a split-second. “Never mind that! They’re definitely  _ something  _ improved since we ran, and I’d like to think everyone else has something to add, too.”

“Well…” Nico’s thumb brushed over her Staff. “The Staff has limits. I can’t cast the same type of spell twice. And it only likes to cast the same  _ type  _ of spell sometimes—but it listens to me more often, now. Like I’m getting better at asking, maybe.”

“And my flying is getting better,” Karolina added, giving Nico a reassuring, if small, smile. “And I think I have a handle on my… light… blasting?” The way her sentence trailed off an octave higher than it started made it obvious that Karolina had no idea what to call it, but whatever it was, it was improving. 

Good.  _ Good.  _ They all need to be as sharp as they can.

“Plus, moving that big rock every time we go in and out of the Hostel made me better at turning my strength on and off when I want to. And I’m less tired when I’m done,” Molly piped up. 

Gert grumbled and stayed silent the longest, but finally, she spoke up. “I… guess my link with Lace is getting stronger. She comes when I call, and it feels like I can sort of understand her.” 

Nico nodded. “See? We  _ have  _ grown. And even—even if we hadn’t, we’d still have to try.”

It was only then that Nico heard Molly’s music playing over the car radio—quiet and barely there, but there nonetheless. 

 

_ Hold on, I've got a feeling like this is almost over _

_ And hold on, I've got a feeling like we're almost done _

_ We don't need this anymore _

_ We don't need this anymore _

 

“Nico’s right,” Gert said, and Nico met her eyes with pleasant surprise. Gert gave her a wry half-smile. “So, what’s the plan?”

 

Alex cut off the engine, pulling up the parking brake and leaning over the wheel, sighing loudly.

“Everyone know what to do?”

Nico rolled her eyes. “We’ve only been over it, like, eight hundred times.”

Gert’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

And with that, she opened her passenger side door, and the rest of them followed suit, climbing out of the car one by one, leaving safety and familiarity behind.

Once everyone was out of the car, Nico took Karolina’s hand and dragged her a few yards away, around a corner. 

“Hey—hey, I—” Her voice, which had been so steady and evasive when coming up with the plan, despite knowing what it would do to her, failed now. There was too much to say, too much and not enough, and somehow, none of it was making its way out of her mouth. 

Karolina’s eyes—blue, blue eyes that never hardened while they were on the run, but somehow grew even more loving and soft—met her own with a gentle understanding. 

“I know,” she said, nearly whispering, as she tucked a strand of Nico’s hair behind her ear. Her fingertips felt like sparks on the side of Nico’s head. And Nico just wanted to hold her until the end came for them both.

_ I need to say it. Before the world ends and everything crashes down on us and she dies and I’ll never get another chance to. _

“I l—” 

Karolina stopped her with a kiss, leaning down and pressing their lips together gently, with just enough pressure that Nico couldn’t speak. She cupped Nico’s jaw with one of her hands, and for once, for once, Nico relaxed into it, let herself be swept into the last kiss of her life. 

When Karolina started to pull away, Nico grabbed her jacket and tugged her back down for another one, this kiss more searing and desperate. Nico couldn’t let go—letting go meant she’d never get another chance to tell Karolina that she loved her, and that would just be the end of her own life, too. 

Karolina finally pulled away again, and this time, Nico let her. She looked down—Nico still could never comprehend how Karolina never got sick and tired of their life on the run, but she always found space in her heart for everyone else—at Nico, and a silent understanding passed between them. This was not the end.

“You can tell me later, okay? When we meet up again. After the plan.”

Nico nodded, pushing down the bile rising in her throat at the thought of meeting back up and Karolina not being there. 

“Okay. I will.”

Karolina pressed a kiss to Nico’s forehead, and Nico let her eyes flutter closed for a second, an eternity, as she wanted it to never end.

But it did. 

A few yards away, Gert cleared her throat loudly, enough for both of them to look up and see her, her hand loosely tangled with Chase’s. Her hair was now ruffled thanks to Chase, but none of that mattered. Not when Karolina and Gert were assigned to the most dangerous part of this mission. 

Nico squeezed Karolina’s hand.

“Good luck,” she said, quiet, hoping that maybe, if she didn’t say it loud enough, Karolina wouldn’t need it.

Karolina nodded. 

“You, too,” she said, somehow even more quiet, and, smiling reassuringly even though Nico didn’t believe it, jogged off to meet up with Gert and break off for their part of the mission.

Nico didn’t know she started crying until she felt hot tears on her chin. She also didn’t hear Molly coming up behind her—until Molly’s hand took Nico’s wrist, and Nico was suddenly reminded of how much growing up she’d had to do in the past few weeks. 

Nico smiled wryly at her. “Ready?”

“I was gonna ask you that, actually,” Molly said, her lips wringing as she looked Nico up and down. “You okay?”

Nico nodded, inhaling deeply to steady herself. She would be fine. Karolina would be fine. They’d find each other in the aftermath. 

“Yeah. Let’s just get this over with.”

 

* * *

 

“So, why did Nico leave us with this job?” Chase groaned, leaning his head back against the concrete block he was squatting behind, Alex just a few feet away, the tip of his hair peeking over the edge.

“Because she doesn’t want us getting in the way,” Alex said flatly. 

Chase sighed. This part is  _ boring— _ he’d rather be with Nico and Molly, or better yet, Gert and Karolina. He’d rather be anywhere but helpless to protect his sort-of girlfriend. Chase shut his eyes, images of Gert, lifeless and broken, flashed through his head unbidden. 

_ It’s all my fault it’s all my fault it’s all my fault— _

“Chase?” Alex asked, more irritated than anything else, but it was enough to snap him out of it. Chase coughed, masking the distress he was feeling.

“Fine. Just… thinking. She probably did stick us here ‘cause we wouldn’t be much help to anyone else.”

Alex snorted. “You’re right about that. Fists of fire can’t exactly help move several hundred tons of earth.”

“Oh, what, like your big brain was going to? Get real. We’re both stuck here.” Chase didn’t mean to snap, but, well, it was Alex. And he didn’t feel like being pleasant. 

“Yeah, well, at least I wanted to help—you just want to tail behind Gert and cry whenever she so much as stubs her toe on a rock.”

Chase was two seconds from blowing a fuse—but the mission came first. So he blew out a breath and peeked over the cement again, breath held just in case he saw anything. 

Alex watched him—Chase knew it from the corners of his eyes—and after a moment, Alex said, “I still can’t believe we got stuck on  _ lookout  _ duty.”

“Lookout’s important,” Chase said dismissively, mostly just parroting the words Gert had said to him in the parking garage. “And besides, the chances of our parents actually showing up are… pretty high. Nico was smart.”

“As always,” Alex sighed, and Chase couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else behind that.

“Want to share with the class?”

“No.” Alex shook his head. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Sure, it is,” Chase said, trying to be friendly to him for once in his life. “We’re gonna die here. Might as well get it all out.”

Alex shot him a sideways glare. 

“To you? I’d rather take it to my grave.”

“Oh, come on,” Chase nudged, more out of curiosity than anything else. “You don’t mean that.”

Alex sighed, loud and annoyed, and stayed silent for so long that Chase was beginning to think he was just going to ignore everything Chase had said. But then, finally, he began: “I don’t know. This whole mess with me and Nico and Karolina… it’s just that. A mess. And I’m sick of looking at it and getting all in my feelings because it shouldn’t matter, it  _ doesn’t  _ matter—and I should just move on. I kind of thought I did when Topher came around…” He didn’t finish that sentence, but Chase didn’t need him to. The bond Alex and Topher had shared was obvious. Alex shook his head. “But then  _ that  _ happened, and now I’m back at square one. It’s not even that I don’t like Nico with Karolina—they’re cute—I just… I just miss her, I guess.” Alex’s mouth twisted. “Not even in a romantic way or anything. I just want my friend back.”

Chase leaned back, thinking. “Did you tell her that?” 

“No.” Alex shook his head, laughing bitterly. “And now I’ll never get to.”

“Don’t say that. We’re gonna get out of here. And hey,” Chase added, making sure Alex was listening. “Maybe this can be a fresh start.”

_ Lord knows we need it,  _ he thought, but didn’t say anything. Alex nodded thoughtfully.

“Maybe you’re not such a jerk.”

Chase laughed. “Maybe you’re not such a nerd.”

Alex’s face suddenly grew somber. “I’m glad I don’t have to die by myself, I guess.”

Chase, though having protested the idea of them dying just a minute ago, now couldn’t do anything but agree. “Me, too.”

And that’s when Tina Minoru shouted, “Give it up! We have you outnumbered!”

 

* * *

 

Gert wished she’d gotten  _ any  _ other job than to die next to chipper, gushy, emotional  _ Karolina Dean.  _

It’s not like Gert hated her, or anything, it’s just that her being sad right now and stealing Gert’s whole  _ modus operandi  _ was really annoying. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be giving me a pep talk about how we’re totally gonna survive this, and how I need to stop being sad because I’m gonna see Chase again when this is over?” Gert asked grouchily. Karolina had been silent and sulky for too long, now, and the only sound between them was Old Lace’s breathing. 

Karolina laughed, humorless. “You’re totally gonna survive this, and you need to stop being sad because you’re gonna see Chase again when all of this is over.”

“Fake bitch,” Gert sighed. “But thanks.”

Karolina clicked her tongue. “No problem.”

The silence between them was unbearable.

“Kar, it’s gonna be okay,” Gert said, surprising herself—usually she doesn’t play the ‘team mom,’ but right now it seemed like the right thing to say. “Nico wouldn’t have given us this job if she didn’t trust us.”

“Or she knows I have the best chance of stalling slash killing Jonah out of all of us, and she used that to our advantage.” Karolina’s lips twisted into something… displeased. “And together we have the best chance at fighting him.”

Gert gave a conceding nod. “Are you willing to fight him?”

“Of course,” Karolina said without hesitation. “He tried to kill us. He kidnapped me and still plans to shear California off the map.” Karolina shook her head. “Whatever connection he has to me—to whatever alien people that I’m a part of… it doesn’t matter.  _ They  _ don’t matter. I have my family right here, and I’m not going to give it up for the sake of people I’ve never met and don’t care about.”

“Not even to learn about your heritage? Your powers?” Gert couldn’t wrap her head around Karolina being so certain, so willing to cut that away from herself. If Gert had the chance to learn more about an alien race that she happened to be a part of… she wasn’t sure she would turn down the opportunity.

Karolina finally hesitated, but after a moment, shook her head. “They’re not who I am. Being an alien, having powers, coming from another planet—it doesn’t define me.” Karolina shared a look with Gert, and Gert could swear she could see Karolina’s lights, faint and distant, dancing in her eyes. “My friends, my family, what I choose to do with myself—that’s what defines me.”

Gert gave her a small smile. “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, huh?”

Karolina blinked. “I—is that the full saying?”

Gert laughed. “Yeah.”

Karolina nodded, looking thoughtful. “Then I guess, yeah.”

Gert could relate to that—they probably all could, ever since the exposure of PRIDE. Or hell, even before, when Gert’s friends were the only thing that mattered in her hell of a world. And now, they still were.

Some things never change. 

Gert exchanged a smile with Karolina and rested one hand on Old Lace, finally returning to their task at hand. From their vantage point on the second floor, they could see Nico and Molly—or rather, where they were supposed to be. Right then, they were hiding, waiting for Karolina’s lights to signal them to start working. Alex and Chase were further into the darkness, keeping watch around the entrance of the dig site. 

Gert’s thoughts followed her eyes, straying towards Chase. Was he okay? Had they already started fighting? Gert was relieved when Chase and Alex got one of the easiest jobs Nico could give them, but now that she was up here, she couldn’t help but wonder if Nico didn’t actually give them the most dangerous. After all, dealing with their parents wouldn’t be very easy.

“O.L.,” Gert whispered, low enough that Karolina couldn’t hear. “If Chase is in trouble, you have to go to him, okay? Don’t—don’t worry about me. Just make sure Chase stays safe.”

She hoped Old Lace understood. 

Karolina peered down into the black next to Gert, and after a moment, Gert realized she was looking for Nico—Molly, too, maybe, but Gert doubted it. 

“She’ll be okay. She’s the strongest out of all of us—except Molly, who’s literally strong enough to bench press a truck,” Gert added, hoping her joke might lighten the mood. 

Karolina cracked a smile. “I hope you’re right.”

Gert opened her mouth to respond, but snapped it shut at the sound of footsteps—footsteps headed in their direction. 

Karolina’s eyes widened—Gert was sure hers did the same. When she opened her mouth, to scream or yell or whatever it was that girls like her did in these situations, Gert clapped her hand over it. They couldn’t risk discovery now. 

The footsteps halted a few yards away from them, somewhere near the edge of the floor. Overlooking the dig site. Gert’s breath caught in her throat. 

“Girls,” said a voice Gert could almost place, and her heart might have stopped beating for a second, “I’m disappointed. I really thought you’d shape up to try and take on  _ me. _ ”

And with that, the pillar Gert and Karolina were hiding behind exploded. 

 

* * *

 

Molly was going to  _ collapse  _ if she had to push another rubble truck into place. 

“You’re doing great, Mols!” Nico shouted, loud and encouraging—but she also sounded exhausted. And suddenly Molly felt bad for being so tired—Nico had already moved three with her magic, and Molly was pushing her third into place. The only reason Nico even stopped was because she was running out of creative ways to say  _ ‘move this truck full of dirt and rocks.’  _

...And also casting spells drained her, they quickly figured out. After moving one truck, Nico had gasped and doubled over in pain, and Molly had rushed to her side. But Nico screwed up her face and moved another, and another. A fighter to the end, she was—Molly could admire that. But she was going to really hurt herself if she kept pushing.

_ Or worse,  _ Molly reflected grimly, sweat dripping down her forehead as she shoved one of the last trucks. 

“Aaaaaand  _ stop!”  _ Nico shouted, and Molly gasped in relief, instantly standing up and stretching her back. 

“Thank God,” Molly sighed, leaning back and stretching. “I thought I was gonna  _ explode. _ ” 

“But you didn’t,” Nico said cheekily. “Seriously, you were great.”

“Thanks.” Molly grinned. “You were, too.”

Nico smiled, though her expression looked more pained. “We still have one more. What else do you think I can cast?”

Molly frowned, thinking. Nico had already used  _ move, transport,  _ and  _ commute.  _ “What other synonyms for ‘move’ are there?”

“What if I just summon a giant fucking elephant to push it?” Nico asked, her voice half humorous and half exhausted. Molly barked a laugh.

“That’s not the worst idea I’ve heard today.”

Nico shook her head. “Do other languages work? How about… _ bouger?”  _

Like that, the last truck appeared in its place—though not without Nico gasping in pain, clutching her stomach and bending over. Molly’s eyes widened when she heard the sound of a wet  _ splat!  _ as Nico was vomiting on the ground. 

“Nico!” 

Nico held up a hand to wave her off, still retching. Finally, after what felt like both an eternity and a millisecond, the heaving stopped, and Nico’s body stopped shuddering quite so badly. When Nico finally looked up, her face was bright red, and her lipstick was completely gone, the rest of her makeup smudged badly. 

“Nico, holy  _ shit.  _ Are you okay?”

Nico nodded, gasping for breath. “I think—I think that was just too many big spells in a row.”

Molly frowned. “It looks like the bigger a spell is, the more it takes out of you.”

Nico didn’t answer, and Molly couldn’t blame her—she was too busy puking up bile to do much of anything else. 

“There goes the birthday cake,” Nico grumbled after a long moment. Molly had almost forgotten about her birthday party—it felt like years ago, now. Like another lifetime. 

“Oh, my God, not the cake,” Molly said, hoping to get a laugh out of Nico. She grunts, but Molly’s not sure if it’s from amusement, or simply acknowledgement. 

After a second or two, or a dozen, Nico finally stood back up. “God, I’d wipe my mouth or something, but I don’t want that shit on my  _ clothes.”  _

“It’s not like you didn’t pick that jacket out of the trash.”

Nico pouted. “This is  _ Karolina’s  _ jacket.”

Of course it was. The pastel yellow should’ve clicked something in Molly’s brain, but it didn’t, for some reason. Probably because mostly everything today had been overshadowed by the discovery that they were all going to die that night. Oops.

“Well, don’t get vomit on your girlfriend’s jacket, now,” Molly said, rolling her eyes. Nico stuck out her tongue. Molly’s nose scrunched in disgust. “Ew, shoving your puke breath in my face? Gross.”

“Show your mother some respect,” Nico snorted. “I didn’t walk uphill both ways to school for this.”

Molly mocked mortification. “You’re  _ so  _ right, I’m so sorry.”

“Shut up, punk.”

Molly would’ve mirrored Nico, then, and stuck her tongue out in response—but as she was moving to do so, a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she looked over towards it. 

It was the second story of the parking garage, supposedly where Karolina and Gert were hidden at that moment, waiting, waiting. Molly began to wonder if it was just hopeful thinking that caught her attention, since nothing else seemed to move.

But then the entire floor lit up in an explosion of white light.

 

* * *

 

The plan was already falling apart. 

Chase didn’t even know what the plan was, honestly—but it was obviously falling apart. Because first of all, their parents weren’t even really supposed to show up. Like, yeah, they had planned for that eventuality, just in case, but it wasn’t supposed to be  _ real.  _ They weren’t  _ really  _ supposed to fight their evil murdering parents, they were just supposed to be on ‘lookout’ for them, away from any  _ real  _ danger. 

Well, that went out the window when pretty much every one of their parents, minus Frank (and since, according to Karolina, he wasn’t her real father anyways, that made sense) and Victor, since Chase’s own father was probably dead. 

_ Good riddance. _

Before he’d told Gert what his father had done to him, every part of his being might have protested the thought. He might have whined and thought things like  _ but he’s your family,  _ and  _ family is all we have, Chase.  _

But he’d given a voice to the awful things that had occured over the years, taken time to dissect how he really felt about about the violence that had infected his home long before any of them found out about their parents being murderers. And he finally stared at his feelings in the face—stared at them long and hard, brought to light by the words  _ ‘you didn’t deserve that, Chase. You didn’t. You were just a kid.’ _

And he found that to the bitterness in him, where there once might have been protestations and excuses for a shitty father that never loved him—instead of those, there was only stone cold silence. 

It’s a start. 

“Chase, we need to move— _ now,”  _ Alex said in his ear, and Chase was reminded of where he was: crouching behind a cement block, his leg cramping and back hurting from so long spent in the same position. And, judging by how close their parents were, Alex was right. They had to  _ move.  _

“We need a plan,” Chase hissed back. Alex wasn’t even looking at him—he was scanning their surroundings. Chase followed his gaze to a huge crane, just a few feet away, holding what looked like several hundred tons of concrete beams in its claw. 

They made eye contact.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Alex asked.

“I hope not,” Chase said in reply, but they were already on the move. 

 

* * *

 

Gert groaned, cracking one eye open, the other sealed shut from rivulets of blood oozing from somewhere along her eyebrow. Her head pounded like a war drum, and from the pain in each breath, something was definitely broken. At best, a rib was cracked. At worst, she had a punctured lung.

“Gert!” Karolina shouted, and Gert coughed, a little too violently for her liking. Shit, was that blood?  _ Did  _ she have a punctured lung? She squinted at the dark stain in front of her and, no, it was just dirt, which was both a relief and an explanation for the earthy taste in her mouth.

“I’m here,” she croaked, her voice coming out in a rasp. She heard some rocks, or what sounded like rocks, being slid together, and then Karolina’s hands cupped her arms as her face appeared in Gert’s vision. 

“Oh, my God, are you okay? Where’s Old Lace? Do you need a hospital?”

“Kar, one—” Gert winced at the sharp pain in her forehead. “One question at a time.”

Karollina nodded. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

Gert hesitated—she wanted to say yes, but the pain was almost unbearable.

“If—if I can just stand up, I’ll be okay,” she finally said, hesitant. 

Karolina must have picked up on her hesitancy, because she frowned with concern.

“Gert, you can’t even see out of one eye.” She took her sleeve and wiped the blood from Gert’s eyebrow, her hands careful and light. 

Gert shut her other eye for a moment, just briefly, before she said, “Not the most hygenic thing in the world. Also—isn’t that Nico’s jacket?”

Karolina muttered under her breath about the blood adding to the gothic aesthetic, or something. 

“Look, just—just help me stand up.”

Karolina hooked her arms underneath Gert’s shoulders and pulled her to her feet—she must be a lot stronger when she glows, either that or she was just a lot stronger than Gert ever realized, in general. Maybe she should stop underestimating her. 

Gert pushed away a little, trying to stand up on her own—she nearly blacked out. The pain from her ribs was so intense, so white-hot and strangling, lacerating, tightening and tightening until it felt like barbed wire heated in fire wrapped around her body, that she could hardly see. 

Old Lace, from somewhere to her left, let out a low cry. 

“Yeah, girl,” Gert wheezed. “I know.” 

Karolina’s eyes flicked back and forth from Gert and her dinosaur a few times, before saying “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Gert gave Karolina a smile, though it made her wince. “Yeah. We got a crusty old man to beat the shit out of, anyways.”

Karolina smiled, nodding. Then, she called a little louder, “Hey, Jonah! Did you vote?”

“What?” Came Jonah’s voice that Gert now recognized as his—but more importantly, Gert felt a touch of pride at Karolina’s quip that had so obviously been inspired by herself. Maybe Karolina listened to her sometimes, after all. 

Karolina made eye contact with Gert—it felt urgent and communicative, but Gert’s head was still swimming in pain and she couldn’t really focus on anything but that.

_ We need to move,  _ Karolina said. 

_ I can’t,  _ Gert tried to convey. 

Realization struck Karolina—or at least, it seemed so. Maybe Gert imagined that whole conversation and Karolina was actually looking at her like she’d lost her damned marbles. But Karolina grabbed her, bridal-style, lighting up as she streaked through the air and basically fired off a giant flare that said  _ here we are, Jonah, come get us!  _ Gert was too busy thinking about how she was probably twice as heavy as Karolina, and how the  _ fuck  _ was she carrying her, to think about Jonah firing off at them again. 

But then Karolina stopped and leaned her up against a wall, Old Lace already there for her to lean against. 

“I’ll distract him, okay?” Karolina whispered, loudly so that Gert’s barely-coherent brain could absorb it. “It looks like that’s our only shot, now.”

Gert shook her head as best as she could. “I’m—I should be fighting with you.”

Karolina gave her a  _ look,  _ a look that said  _ I’m sorry  _ or  _ Are you serious?  _ or maybe even  _ Don’t even try, okay?  _

Gert recognized that emotion as her least favorite one in the entire world, in the history of emotions, one that she loathed feeling but even more so, loathed it being directed towards her: pity. 

“Karolina—Karolina don’t you  _ dare—” —leave me here,  _ the rest of the sentence was supposed to say. But her happy little rainbow ass was already gone, streaming through the air the same way she’d come. 

_ Fuck. _

 

* * *

 

“Karolina,” Nico whispered, so quietly that Molly could barely hear her. Honestly, she doubted if she heard it at all, but then Nico looked at Molly, and the way her eyes were glazed... she didn’t look like herself. She looked grief-stricken and shocked and scared—nothing like the strong, stoic leader that she’d become while they were on the run. 

And Molly had to make a choice, because Nico needed her. 

“Hey—hey, she’s gonna be fine, okay? That’s why you sent her up there, right? Because she has the best chance?”

Nico shook her head, her breath coming in shorter gasps now. “I—I left her—I left her the first time—she said—”

Fuck. Hysteria. 

“Nico!” Molly grabbed Nico by the shoulders, leaning her head down a little to try and force Nico to make eye contact with her. “Look at me!”

Nico looked at her. 

“This is  _ not  _ your fault. Karolina is strong, she is capable, and she can  _ handle  _ this. She has a job to do.  _ We  _ have a job to do. We’re all in danger, okay? Karolina knows that, and she knows what to do. If she needs help, she has Gert. Gert’s looking out for her.” Molly tried to hide the way her voice cracked on that last syllable, tried to hide the fear that suddenly seized her voice when she realized Gert was caught in that explosion. Worse, still, they didn’t even know what that explosion  _ was.  _

But she had to be strong, now. 

“Yeah.” Nico swallowed, nodding, the panic dying from her eyes. “Yeah.”

Molly shook her just a little. “You okay?”

“Karolina said—” Nico took in a deep, shuddering breath. “She said I could tell her, later. Tonight.”

Oh. Oh, no. Didn’t Karolina watch those stupid movies where the guy is  _ obviously  _ going to die, so he says something like ‘I’ll tell you after this,’ and then he  _ dies?  _ God. If Karolina didn’t survive this, Molly was going to kill her. 

“She will.” Molly nodded affirmingly, making sure to catch Nico’s eye again. “She  _ will.  _ You’re gonna meet up after this and be  _ so  _ gross and sappy and I’m gonna play video games with Alex while you and Karolina make out and Gert and Chase do… Gert and Chase things. Okay?”

Nico snorted. “You know what sex is, Mols.”

Molly shook her head. “Ew! Maybe I don’t want to think about my sister having sex!”

“That’s fair, actually. Sorry,” Nico laughed, light and humorous, which made Molly blow out a breath of relief. Maybe they’d be okay. Maybe she could forgive Nico for bringing up the  _ awful  _ thought of Gert having  _ sex— _ like, sure, it’s normal and healthy and whatever, but that’s her  _ sister.  _

“We’re gonna be okay,” Molly said, but honestly, she wondered if she was saying it for Nico’s benefit, or her own. 

 

* * *

 

Chase had to wonder what in the entire fuck was going on, and how had this all gone to shit so  _ fast?  _

They’d had a plan. Granted, he wasn’t entirely sure what that plan was in the first place, but he was sure that they’d had one. And  _ this— _ scaling a forty foot crane to potentially drop two hundred tons of cement blocks onto their parents, unless they came up with a better idea in the meantime—wasn’t part of it. And Chase couldn’t even complain, because his muscles were aching from all the climbing, he was sweating like a pig, and they had to be as noiseless as possible to avoid their parents somehow discovering them and foiling their new, improvised plan. 

Not that they could’ve even foiled the original plan, since none of them even knew what it was. 

The sweat was starting to become a problem, though—they were thirty feet in the air, and Chase’s hands were slick enough to make a relatively easy scale, all things considered, become lethal.

“Alex—” Chase started, gasping for breath. His arms  _ ached,  _ and it was taking everything in him not to look at the ground below. 

“Almost—there—” Alex gasped, and it was then that Chase remembered that Alex wasn’t as fit as he was. The last time he’d worked out was probably when he was, like, three. Maybe that’s why he’d insisted on going first—so that Chase could catch him if he fell. 

“Alex—Alex, look.” Chase slowed to a halt, his muscles screaming somehow even more, the effort of remaining still and tense even worse than the continued movement. “Are we really gonna kill our parents?”

“Do we have a choice?” Alex’s voice was grim, but shaky. He stopped, too, and Chase could see his arms trembling with the movement. 

“Well, yeah. We always have a choice.”

“This isn’t a Level 100 Philosophy course.” Alex rolled his eyes. “We can talk about morality all we want, but it doesn’t change the fact that we have to do  _ something,  _ Chase, and our parents are  _ evil.  _ Maybe they deserve to die.” 

Chase’s jaw dropped open, but he didn’t know if it was shock or simply just the need to breathe more deeply. Since when did Alex make the decision to be judge and jury? He had clearly been thinking about it for a while. 

“And do you want to share with the class how you decided this?” He found himself asking. 

Alex sighed. “Look, none of our parents are good people—especially not mine. Look at what they did to Darius, those kids—they were our age, Chase. My dad  _ killed  _ a kid my age just for this—for PRIDE, for Jonah. They chose their sides a long time ago, and they’re not helpless, scared little kids. They knew what they were doing when they chose to cheat and murder to get to the top. They don’t deserve a second chance.”

“Alex…” Chase began, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. Everything he’d said was true—he wanted to believe otherwise, he wanted to make excuses and say they’d been coerced and signed up without knowing what it would do to them, but he was right. Their parents had known what they were getting into when they signed up, and they’d had every opportunity to back out before now. “I’m just saying, maybe there’s another way.”

Alex looked back upwards, towards the top of the crane that they were so close to, so close to ending this once and for all. Finally being free. “If there is, I just don’t see it, Chase.”

 

* * *

 

Gert leaned heavily against Old Lace, eye still swollen shut as she made her way towards where most of the flashing lights were coming from. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what was going on, but she felt like she could do  _ something  _ to help, even if that just meant sending Old Lace in.

But then she peeked her head around the cement corner, and what she saw makes her stomach turn cold. 

Karolina already has a gash on her forehead—hell, maybe she had that even before she dumped Gert to the side, and she didn’t see it before. She had a cut on her lip, and, despite her pulling Gert out of the rubble, she had to wonder if Karolina didn’t suffer any damage herself. 

Jonah, meanwhile, looked fine. Spotless, actually—like Karolina hadn’t landed a single hit on him. He couldn’t have looked more casual and unaffected had he had his hands in his pockets, or been more obviously strolling like he was on an afternoon walk through the park. 

“You’ll have to try harder than that, dear. I could’ve taught you so much.”

Karolina, to her credit, didn’t respond—instead, she shot what looked like a dagger of light straight at Jonah, who batted it away easily with his wrist. He fired one of his own at her, and it struck the concrete pillar Karolina had ducked behind. It sprayed rubble everywhere, and Gert just barely saw Karolina’s light duck in time to avoid being caught by shrapnel. 

_ The pillars.  _

If… If Jonah could destroy enough of those pillars…

Gert whistled, loudly—she didn’t need Old Lace’s attention, though. She needed Jonah’s. 

“Hey, bitch man!” Gert shouted, leaning down to pick up a stray rock and throw it at him. The pain in her ribs stabbed at her, but she gritted her teeth and spat another insult through hissed breath. “Nobody fucking wants you around! Go back to the hole you crawled out of!”

Jonah spared her a glance, filled with disdain. It didn’t matter—that glance was all Karolina needed to fire a beam of light straight across his cheek, grazing him. Gert could hear the flesh sizzle from where she stood.

Good. He could be hurt. 

Jonah made some sort of frustrated noise and fired off again at Karolina, seeming to decide that Gert wasn’t worth his time—ouch, but still a big mistake. 

“Lacey,” Gert whispered, still keeping her eyes on Jonah. “Go get him.”

Old Lace bared her teeth and shot off like a rocket, hitting Jonah straight on and tackling him to the cement. 

“Fuck you, bitch!” Gert cheered as Jonah rolled out from underneath Old Lace. “Fuck you, fuck your crusty ass, and fuck the patriarchy!” 

Karolina shot into the air and directed another blast at Jonah. “Can you maybe not swear  _ so  _ much?”

“Sorry,” Gert grumbled, rolling her eyes as the pain returned in a nauseating wave, barely staying on her feet this time. But Jonah managed to disentangle himself from Old Lace, blasting her with an energy beam that made Gert’s entire forehead explode in pain—she bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood to keep from crying out. 

“I could’ve taught you about your powers, Karolina. About your home planet. It was called Majesdane—did you know that?”

Gert almost missed the way Karolina hesitated in midair, the way her face suddenly filled with uncertainty. The new information made Gert pause, too. A home planet? A family? It sounded enticing, even to Gert, and she wasn’t the one struggling to come to terms with being both a lesbian  _ and  _ an alien. A place where she wouldn’t feel alone, a place where everything about her was normal… 

_ Do the right thing, Kar,  _ Gert found herself begging silently. 

And then Karolina’s face screwed up with even more determination than Gert had ever seen it with, and she wondered why she’d ever even doubted her at all.

“My home planet is  _ Earth,”  _ Karolina said, forceful and angry. “And we already have enough trouble keeping it around without assholes like  _ you  _ coming in and screwing  _ everything  _ up! So just get  _ out  _ of my goddamn  _ life!”  _ And with that last syllable, she projected more light into one stream that blasted Jonah across the garage and into another support column than Gert had ever seen her control before. 

“Lace, now!” Gert said, feeling somewhat like a Pokémon trainer with her theatrics, but it did the job, and Old Lace shook herself to her feet, darting off after Jonah. 

The light of Karolina’s powers, pink and blue and yellow and all sorts of other colors that Gert couldn’t really parse, turned to white as Jonah’s powers met hers in a fierce battle not unlike the first that she hadn’t even witnessed personally, but the effects of it had devastated the surrounding area. 

“You don’t even understand what you’re trying to stop!” Jonah hissed, and Gert scoffed. 

“We’re gonna die even if we don’t try and stop you—that doesn’t scream ‘worth trying to dissect the morality and reasoning behind it’ to me.”

Jonah didn’t respond—he was too busy being smacked in the face by a six hundred pound dinosaur, the light show turning back to pink and blue as the white disappeared for the time being. 

Gert’s small moment of pride, though, turned into horror when both Karolina and Old Lace were thrown back, and Jonah emerged with both of his hands extended, glowing. Blood dripped down the corner of his mouth.

“This has been fun, girls, but there’s a rite to attend to. And unless you’re offering to volunteer… I have a world to purge.”

 

* * *

 

Well, shit. Something had either happened to Chase and Alex, or they really, really sucked at being lookouts. 

“Get down,” Molly whispered, her breath hissing. “Get  _ down!”  _

Nico slammed to the ground beside her as Molly tugged her sleeve, maybe a little too harshly. She peeked over the top of the block that they were hiding behind and—God, there was Stacey. She looked so… frail. Worried. Like a helpless old grandmother, wringing her hands as she watched the clock, waiting for her children to come home. 

Except she wasn’t helpless, she wasn’t a grandmother, and she was very, very dangerous. 

“Molly!” Stacey called, and Molly squeezed her eyes shut at how fragile her voice sounded. How scared she was. “Molly, sweetie, please come out! I won’t hurt you!”

Nico squeezed Molly’s arm, bringing her back down to Earth. She looked at Nico, silently asking,  _ should I say something?  _

Nico looked unusually pale, still, dried blood smeared underneath her nose. If this went wrong, she wouldn’t be able to cast spells for backup.

“This better not go wrong, then,” Molly grumbled under her breath, probably confusing the shit out of Nico, and stood up. Stacey’s eyes locked on her instantly. 

“Molls, thank the heavens,” Stacey said with frantic relief, but Molly took a step back.  _ Dangerous dangerous dangerous.  _

“Hi, Stacey,” Molly said, trying her best to sound cool. Distant. Like she wasn’t still raw and bleeding whenever she thought about Stacey, or the family she once had. About how that was all ripped away from her in an instant. 

“Molly, I’m—I’m so sorry that this has all happened, okay?” 

Molly blinked. If she’d expected anything from this conversation, it wasn’t… it wasn’t an  _ apology.  _ Evil people don’t apologize. Do they?

“You’re sorry?”

“I am. I’m so sorry, Molls. I never—me and Dale, we never wanted this.”  _ But you let it happen. You saw it happen and you did nothing.  _ “When we started PRIDE, we—please, believe me, Molls—we only wanted what was best for you kids. If we could’ve seen how much this would’ve hurt you, we would never have agreed to this.”

Maybe Molly could believe that. Maybe she could accept that somewhere in Stacey’s head, there was a justification, an excuse. A reason. Maybe she could accept that this was all for some grander purpose, and she could go home and finally be with her family again. 

For a moment, she let herself entertain the idea. Being home again, with Stacey and Dale and Gert, happy, like nothing had changed. 

But Gert would rather die, kicking and screaming, before she ever went home with Stacey and Dale. And that thought made Molly wonder if she’d really force Gert home, away to die silently, instead of fighting tooth and nail to protect her home, her planet, her everything from the claws of Jonah. And that made Molly realize that no matter her reasons—be it for love, or family, or protection, or whatever else Stacey wanted to say—Molly couldn’t crawl home to die. Not anymore. She  _ had  _ to fight—not just for her home, or even for Gert. For herself. Because if Molly didn’t go down fighting, she didn’t know if she could live with herself.

It was just unfortunate that Stacey was caught on the other side of this war. 

“I know,” was all Molly could say, and she saw Stacey’s eyes flicker with hope. “And I’m sorry, too.”

“Dear, you don’t have to be so—”

“I’m sorry, because it doesn’t change that you still picked the wrong side of this. So I’m giving you one chance to get out of here before I have to do something you’re gonna regret.”

Stacey gave her a helpless look, her watery eyes brimming with tears. And Molly was faced with the one emotion she didn’t expect to have—regret. Regret that it had come to this. 

“I shouldn’t have said anything at all,” Molly mumbled to Nico, who was looking at her with a kind of awe. She looked back up at Stacey, who still hadn’t said anything, with a resentful glare. “Go on. Get out of here.”

Stacey shook her head. “I’m not leaving without you. Even if it means having to do  _ this.”  _ And with that, Stacey pulled out what looked suspiciously like a gun.

“Stacey!” Molly shouted, ducking down behind the concrete. 

“It won’t hurt, sweetie. It’ll just pinch for a minute, but then you’ll wake up safe and sound, and everything will be okay.”

“She’s insane,” Molly said under her breath. “She’s insane.”

“You’re just noticing?” Nico asked, grumbling. “Come on. We need to do something before she fucks everything up.”

Molly nodded. If Stacey managed to take one or both of them out… the whole plan would fall apart. The plan that she didn’t know anything about, but still. It was kind of imperative that all of them stayed alert and active, because if one of them got taken out… the whole web unraveled. 

_ What if someone’s already been kidnapped? What if that’s what happened to Chase and Alex? What if that light was Jonah taking Karolina and Gert? What if we’re the only ones left? _

Molly shook herself out of those thoughts. Even if that was true, Stacey would’ve bragged about it, or something. She had to believe that the others were okay. She  _ had  _ to.

And that’s when the tremors started. 

 

* * *

 

Chase threw himself to the side of the cabin as soon as they reached the top of the crane, breathless from the climb. Alex was bent over, hands on his knees, wheezing for breath like he’d never had oxygen before. Both of them took the minute to catch their breaths, Chase trying to hide how deeply he was breathing. 

“So…” Chase managed, in between breaths. “Now what?”

“Now—now, we drop six hundred tons of concrete onto our parents and be done with it.”

Chase’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Dude—dude, what the fuck, those are our  _ parents? _ ”

“Yeah, and? They’re murderers that killed kids like you and me, and never had a problem with it before. We’re saving lives, Chase.”

“Wilder—Alex,” Chase switched, trying to keep the pleading out of his voice. “You can’t—you can’t just  _ kill  _ them.”

“What were you expecting, Chase? A fairytale ending with pink bunnies and rainbows?” The words stung, possibly because Alex said them with the harshness of sandpaper, but they dug deep into Chase, deep and biting and refusing to let go. “That’s not how the real world works. And our parents deserve to die.”

Maybe Chase would’ve protested more. Maybe he would’ve come up with some amazing, philosophical argument that blew Alex’s morals right out of the water. Maybe he could’ve somehow stopped the events that followed next, in such short succession that Chase barely kept up with it until he was lying in the aftermath. 

One, Alex leaped towards the control pad and began messing with the buttons, presumably looking for the crane release. 

Two, the ground started shaking, like ancient gods buried deep beneath the earth were stirring—normally, he would’ve dismissed it as a California shimmy, but this was deep and otherworldly, like something beyond human was shaking the earth like a baby’s crib. 

Three, the cord holding up the concrete pillars snapped like a toothpick, or wet paper towels holding rocks. Just completely broke in half. And Chase closed his eyes as the cement struck the ground in a thunderous, earth shattering _boom—_ if he pretended, if he scrunched his eyes hard enough, screwed them tight enough that he didn’t have to see it—he would’ve sworn that he could hear the bones crunching underneath.

 

* * *

 

Gert didn’t exactly know what she was seeing. 

She’d seen Jonah’s powers before—he glowed like a heterosexual pride flag, and it was ugly as homemade sin, but this was… different. He was glowing, but it was almost like he wasn’t focusing his power on himself. 

Like he was  _ summoning  _ something. 

The thought made her shudder, deeply, and she knew that whatever he was summoning—the word  _ Gibborim _ clicked in her mind, the ancient Hebrew gods that had been mentioned—she did  _ not  _ want to find out. 

Coming to her senses, she looked around for Karolina, who was lying dazedly a few feet away. The building shuddered again, concrete and iron scraping together in the most awful way, like a hundred times magnified nail on a chalkboard. But when Gert saw the way concrete dust was billowing out of the pillars Jonah had already weakened by blasting them with literal pure energy, her eyes widened as realization struck her. 

“Old Lace— _ Old Lace!”  _ She shouted, trying desperately, desperately to save at least someone from the ticking time bomb above their heads. 

Why, oh why, did she always have to be right?

Old Lace appeared beside her, loyal as always. Gert squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus as the supports around her groaned, ready to buckle at any second, and she had no idea when the next tremor was going to start and bring it all crashing down, and all she could think about was that she  _ had  _ to save Karolina—she didn’t deserve to die just because of Gert’s ill thought out plan, her failure to protect her friends, her father that never saw her as anything but a means to an end. 

At least Gert had always been the appendix. They would be fine without her—and if one person had to stay behind, she was glad it was her. 

“Lace—I need you to get Karolina, just grab her in your mouth, okay? And run as far as you can, and as fast as you can, and don’t stop running until you’re safe. You’re gonna be safe, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Gert turned away, sure that Lace had received her orders and was going to dutifully carry them out like she had always done—but now, now she had to distract Jonah and prepare herself for death. 

She wondered what it would feel like. Would it hurt a lot? Would she die in complete agony—oh, shit, what if she didn’t die of the thousands of tons of concrete suffocating her, but instead, of suffocation, of her ribcage collapsing in on her lungs until she can’t move, she cant breathe, and all she can do is wait to die? She’d heard that suffocation was the worst way to go—

She  _ wasn’t  _ prepared for Old Lace to snatch her by the coat collar and dart away, away from Karolina and Jonah, away from death. She barely registered it happening, barely registered her feet dragging on the ground until they were almost out of the building when the next tremor started, barely kept her head from spinning violently on its axle as she realized what was happening. 

No.  _ No.  _ Karolina wasn’t supposed to die here—she had a future, a relationship, a life after this. Gert? Not so much. 

Sure, she loved Chase, and maybe he loved her, too, but he’d move on after her. He’d get over her quickly, and find someone else. She didn’t have a family to come home to, or a lover, or anything like that. They could move on without her. 

So why,  _ why  _ was she just watching, dumbfounded, as Old Lace dragged her away from where she was supposed to die, when Karolina was the one with the future? 

Then the building shuddered, groaned with the weight of the world pressing on its shoulders, and Gert let out a raw, guttural scream, barely aware that she was in her body at all, just watching, watching, helpless to do anything as the building shuddered, as it cried out in agony and finally, slowly, and then all at once, collapsed. 

And Gert watched her friend, someone who was supposed to live, die. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITS BEEN. THREE MONTHS BUT I FINALLY HAVE FOOD FOR YALL  
> ALSO IM PLANNING A SEQUEL TO THIS EVER SINCE S2 DROPPED SO STAY TUNED FOR THAT  
> ALSO I SAID FUCK KAROLINAS SEASON 2 ARC MY CITY NOW  
> I LOVE U GUYS PLEASE COMMENT IF U HAVE THOUGHTS OR QUESTIONS OR U CAN ALWAYS SHOOT ME A CC ON TWITTER THANK YALL FOR READING UWU


	10. the heaviness belongs to gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from pluto/sleeping at last)

The fear of death is a strange thing. It always lurks, ever present and deep in the subconscious, ticking so deep and slowly that it’s easy to forget it’s there at all. But it never forgets—never really goes away, either. It’s a small fear, a dark one, but when called upon, it can move mountains. The fear of death is an ancient one, a fear instilled in the very bones of humanity, a fear vast and unencompassable, existing long before man ever walked the earth, and will exist long after. The fear of death has been immortalized for centuries—the modern interpretation prefers to paint death as a horrifying skeletal man, the Reaper, with a scythe for harvesting souls like grain. The Greeks called him Thanatos, god of Death. It was an almost comforting thought to them—that death came eventually, and all bowed. He serves as a reminder that human beings are mortal, and soon, the reign of humanity will end. But even animals fear death—their survival instincts seizing them and making them fight for dear life, fight until the bitter end. This is a phenomenon in human beings, too—there’s something about survival that, even those that wish to take their own lives must overcome this deep, basal, intrinsically human instinct, the instinct that screams  _ I don’t want to die,  _ no matter how much the brain tells it the opposite. 

The fear of death must not be allowed to reign at any cost, but sometimes, it is the last clutch to life one has. And when it seizes the body, there’s not much to be done except watch and marvel as life struggles to carry on, as the body becomes almost nothing, but there’s that spark, that last desperation, that basal, primal, intrinsically human instinct that screams  _ I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.  _

This is what happened to Karolina. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	11. and your angels will go free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (title from los angeles/peter bradley adams)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

If the calm before the storm was eerie, the calm  _ after  _ the storm was fucking otherworldly. 

Or at least, Alex had to assume so—the ground had stopped shaking, and even though the collapse around them had led him to think that he and Chase were going to die alone, together (which was almost worse, honestly—dying alone wasn’t so bad, but listening to Chase preach at him until he kicked it was even worse), they were still standing after it. And now, they had to find the others, assuming they were even still alive. 

The parking garage where Gert and Karolina had been had collapsed during the earthquake. Alex had no idea if they’d made it out, and he resolved not to think about it until he was either confronted with their broken corpses, or until he found Nico and Molly, alive or dead as they might be. 

Honestly, Alex didn’t know what they’d do next. He didn’t really expect to live through the night. 

_ There’s still hope yet,  _ he thought grimly, pushing himself up to his knees. The crane had fallen during the earthquake, leaving he and Chase bruised and probably bloody, but intact, since they’d been in the cabin. Chase looked a little unconscious, though, which meant he probably hit his head. Alex briefly hoped he didn’t have a concussion.

He peered through the fractured lenses of his glasses at his surroundings—it looked like mostly rubble. Street lights had fallen, live telephone wires were broken and sizzling, and—oh, there was a mound of concrete the size of half of a city block just thirty feet away. Alex shuddered, trying not to imagine the broken, twisted bodies of their parents underneath it. 

Wasn’t he supposed to feel some sort of vindication? Wasn’t there supposed to be a victory here, a triumph? He  _ won— _ his plan worked, he stopped his parents from murdering more people, saved the world from complete destruction by tearing it in half from the inside, and prevented ancient gods from awakening. He should feel good… right?

Instead, it just felt like his hands were stained with blood. He wiped them on his jeans, instinctively, but the feeling didn’t go away. 

He tried to stand up, but the crookedness of the shattered cabin around him made it more than a little difficult. He managed it, eventually, surprised to find no real bodily harm done to him other than quite a lot of bruising. Perhaps whatever gods were out there had blessed him, tonight. 

_ We’re going to need a lot more than blessings.  _

Alex squinted, blinking and eventually deciding that having broken glass on his face was probably bad, took off his glasses and stuffed them into his pocket, ignoring the sting on his fingers. 

Oh, excellent. He just realized he couldn’t move his other arm—possibly because when the crane hit the ground, that arm had taken the brunt of the blow. Now he has to deal with a broken fucking arm, an unconscious Chase, and dead (?) friends. 

His cheeks felt wet, but he ignored the tears. He had to—they weren’t what was important, right now. Right now, he had to find his friends, and he had to cut their losses and get out, before the authorities showed up. 

After a backwards glance at Chase and, realizing that no matter what kind of fucking miracle happened, Alex couldn’t carry him, he decided he’d better find everyone else, and together they could come back for Chase. 

And they  _ would _ come back—Alex was done leaving people behind. He’d never leave one of his own again. 

But for right then, he had to struggle his way out of the twisted, broken cabin of the crane, and find the others. Nico would probably be fine—she had the staff. Molly, too, since she was strong enough to snap a building in half. 

Walking proved to be more than a little difficult, though—in fact, it sent needles of hot pain through his shoulder every time he moved, but it had to be done. Alex gritted his teeth, shoving down the gasps and tears as he tried to muscle the agony down. 

Outside of the crane, the dig site looked like a wasteland. Piles and piles of concrete lay in ruins, shattered to rubble by the force of the parking garage toppling down. Most of the ground seemed to slant deeply towards the center of the lot—the hole, Alex realized. It must have collapsed on itself. 

Well, that was one problem off of their shoulders. 

“Nico?” Alex croaked, his lips cracked and dusted, his voice like a record scratch.  _ God,  _ he was thirsty, and the dust in the air didn’t help. He cleared his throat and tried shouting again. “Nico!”

Coughing sounded to his right. Startled, Alex took a step backwards, too suddenly—pain tore through him instantly. 

“Alex?” 

That wasn’t Nico’s voice. It was  _ Gert’s. _

“Gert?” He said, a little more frantic—she sounded weak and dazed. She  _ had  _ to be nearby, but if she needed help, what was he going to do?

What were they going to do?

“Alex—I’m over here,” she said, a little louder, a little more focused—but this time, Alex could hear the pain and sobs wracking her body. He squinted through the grey air and—sure enough—he could spy her silhouette, a faded purple splash of color amidst miles of grey. 

“Gert, are you okay?” He asked, picking his way over towards her. She leaned against Old Lace heavily, possibly having a foot injury? And it looked like she was clutching one hand to her stomach—he hoped it wasn’t broken.

“Alex, I—I’m so sorry,” she said, gasping between hysteric sobs. Alex’s eyes widened. 

“Where’s Karolina?” He asked, his voice barely a whisper. He dreaded the answer, and his suspicions were all but confirmed when Gert looked up at him, eyes red and shiny with tears, pain glazing them to where she looked almost inhuman. 

“I—I couldn’t—” And she didn’t say any more, instead breaking down fully, gasping loudly and tears falling freely. Her wails were loud enough to shake the earth, or at least draw some very unwanted attention.

But…  _ Karolina? Dead?  _

It made Alex’s world tilt. He suddenly realized he’d spent every moment until then being petty to her, lashing out and making her feel guilty for something that wasn’t even her fault. He’d tried to leave her behind once—why would she think he’d come back for her, even if she was alive? He’d been a horrible friend, and a worse leader. And now she was dead, and it was too late to make up for it. 

And he didn’t know what to say—luckily, he didn’t have to. Gert pulled him into a hug, burying her face in his chest and shuddering with sobs. He awkwardly patted her hair with his good hand, unsure of what to do in the moment. It wasn’t like the situation wasn’t serious—Karolina was  _ dead— _ but he was unused to being an emotional support pillar, and didn’t exactly know how to go about it. 

“Gert? Is that you?” A voice called out, and it took Alex’s dazed brain a moment to recognize it as Molly’s. Alex opened his mouth to answer, but inhaled a mouthful of dust and coughed loudly. 

“Ye—Yeah,” he managed. “It’s Alex. I have Gert right here.”

“Alex? Oh, God, where’s Chase?”

Something in saying the name ‘Chase’ ignited Gert. Her eyes snapped up to Alex, still partially in shock and glazed over, but looking a little more coherent than before. 

“Chase,” she whispered. 

“He’s fine, I think—I couldn’t carry him. He’s just unconscious,” he added quickly, when Gert’s eyes rounded even more at the idea of Alex having to carry Chase. 

Gert nodded—it looked like mostly to herself. “Okay,” she said, and honestly, Alex was just relieved she was processing things again. 

“We’re gonna go get him, okay? I’m not leaving him.” 

Gert shuddered. 

Alex hoped he could keep his promise. 

Molly emerged from the dust to their right, waving the fog away, a sickly looking Nico in tow. She was squinting and coughing—Nico just looked stunned. Alex couldn’t describe the relief he felt at seeing that both of them looked relatively unharmed. 

“Well, we’re five for six,” Alex said, the humor dry and very, very bleak. Honestly, now that he’d said it, it sounded tasteless and awful, but what else was he supposed to do? Have a breakdown?

“Wait… what does that mean?” Molly’s eyes widened and, before Alex could explain, she skimmed over the people in her presence and, voice wavering, she asked, “Where… where are Chase and Karolina?”

“Chase… he’s okay, I think. Concussed.” Alex tried to keep his voice from shaking, tried not to imagine what he’d do if Chase  _ wasn’t  _ fine. “I couldn’t carry him, so I came to find you guys.”

“And… and Karolina?” Nico spoke for the first time, actually sounding relatively steady, which was surprising, to say the least. The only thing that betrayed her desperation was the sharp intake of breath before she’d spoken, and the way her eyes squeezed shut as she asked. 

Alex and Gert looked at each other, Alex trying to decide if Gert was coherent enough to answer. Also, the fact that Nico was awaiting the answer, and Alex remembered the  _ last  _ time something like this had happened, he figured it was better to just bite the bullet. 

But before he could say anything, Nico’s eyes flicked back and forth between Gert and Alex, and must have drawn her own conclusion for herself. 

“No…” Nico almost whispered, quiet and shaky. It was the first time Alex saw her composure crack that night. “No. She—” Nico drew in a gasp, and Alex could see tears springing to her eyes. “She’s  _ not.  _ She promised. She  _ promised.”  _

The rest of them stood, shocked and stunned, as Nico seemed to work herself into more and more hysteria. Alex didn’t know what to do—he felt like moving would make Nico lash out at him, blame him for this, somehow, because of the last time. The others were probably still too lost in their own processing to intervene, though, so Alex had to step up to the plate. 

“Nico,” he said, as calmly as he could muster. “We’re going to find her.” Nico’s tears slowed as she looked at him, confusion etched all over her face. Alex choked a little on the next words: “We’re—we’re going to. We have to.”

Nico’s frantic movements froze, and she stared at him, possibly processing, possibly just deciding how to respond. Then, she nodded. 

“I’m not leaving her, Alex. Not—” Nico’s eyes squeezed shut, and Alex felt his gut wrench in sympathy. “Not again.”

 

After most everyone calmed down, Nico and Gert had reaffirmed themselves in reality long enough for Nico to fix Gert’s and Alex’s bones. It felt strange, having his shoulder joint pop into place by magical means, and his arm was still incredibly sore, but at least it would heal. Gert had been a little trickier—she’d had a broken rib and a cracked wrist, both of which had taken Nico several minutes of thinking to pull off a creative enough spell that didn’t waste the obvious ‘heal’ or ‘fix’ (but honestly, her using  _ ‘full slab’  _ to replace Gert’s rib was pretty funny, if still a little grim, given the mood). 

Alex’s arm twitched. He ignored it pointedly as Molly led the way back the way he had come, towards the crane so that they could at least retrieve Chase. When the metal cab came into sight, though, Gert pushed past all of them and broke into a run, Old Lace close on her heels. 

_ “Chase!”  _ She screamed, raw and almost inhuman, the desperation in her voice gut wrenching. Alex had to look away. “Chase, oh my God!” She turned around to throw an accusatory glare at Alex. “You said he was  _ fine!  _ How was anyone supposed to survive  _ this?”  _

“I did,” Alex said quietly. “And he was breathing. I didn’t see anything obviously distended, so he must have just knocked his head.”

“Well, we’ll know for sure in a second,” Nico said. She’d been muted ever since they’d met up again—Alex couldn’t blame her. But they couldn’t look for her just yet. Nico held the Staff out, over Chase’s unconscious form, closed her eyes, and was silent for a moment. Everyone in the vicinity held their breath, waiting. It felt like an eternity passed before Nico opened her eyes and said,  _ “I didn’t get no sleep ‘cuz of y’all, y’all not gonna get no sleep ‘cuz of me!”  _

Chase’s eyes flew open in a theatrical gasp. Gert choked on something like a sob, and Alex could only watch as she rushed to his side, clutching him in a tight hug. 

Alex noticed how Nico looked away, too—pain twisting her face into something that looked dangerously close to tears. Out of courtesy, Alex kept his mouth shut on her bizarre choice of spell. At least it was creative.They all stood, silent and watching, as Chase muttered, “Gert? Gert is that you?” And Gert’s tears echoed across the wasteland around them, but instead of the pained, awful ones from minutes ago, these were relieved, loving, and overall, glad, glad that they still managed to find some happiness in the desolation around them. 

“Yeah,” Gert sniffed. “Yeah, it’s me, baby.”

“I love you,” Chase said, quietly, so quietly, and from the way Gert froze, from the way she looked at him… this wasn’t something that had been said before. Alex suddenly found the ground very interesting to look at. 

Gert’s sniffles died down, and the only sound for a few heartbeats was the wind howling through the eerie landscape. The pebbles at Alex’s feet were a pale grey, jagged and cracked like they’d all been scattered by something shattering, the pieces falling into the mixture of shapes now on the ground. 

“I love you, too,” Gert whispered, and Alex peeked up at them to see her kissing Chase’s forehead. “Are you hurt?” 

Chase shook his head no, but slowly. “Just… just aching.”

Nico, to Alex’s left, nodded. “Good. Molly, can you carry him?”

Chase protested. Nico gave him a nasty glare, and he quieted down immediately. “I didn’t ask. Molly—can. You. Carry. Him.”

“Yeah,” she said, glancing nervously between Nico and Chase—she must have decided that her chances were very, very little with Nico, so she sighed loudly and scooped Chase into her arms. 

“Good. Gert,” Nico said, turning to face Gert. “Take us back to where the parking garage was.” 

Gert looked a little incoherent, but after Molly patted Chase with her hand to reassure Gert that he was, in fact, fine, she hesitated, and then gestured for the rest of them to follow her. She had one hand resting on Old Lace’s shoulder as they wound their way through the rubble around them, and it was only as they were approaching the very bottom of the valley that the collapse had created that Alex realized the severity of their situation. How very lucky they were that any of them were alive at all. 

“How… how did you guys get out of that?” Alex asked Nico, as she trudged silently beside him. The hole was collapsed from the inside, and pretty badly at that. The ground dipped sharply where the cavern had once been, and it kind of looked like God had taken one of those garden things that you shove in the ground to till the soil and had just gone buck fucking wild—except instead of soil, it was six hundred tons of pure concrete. Basically, everything was fucked, and the fact that Nico and Molly had survived being in the heart of it with barely a scratch was just… amazing. 

Nico shrugged. “I don’t really know. When the collapse started, I just kind of panicked… I knew even Molly wasn’t going to survive a thousand pounds of metal dropped on her, let alone me, so I guess I just cast the first thing I could think of that would save us both.”

“Which was?”

Nico paused, looking at the hole, then Molly, then Alex. “Paper beats rock.”

“No way.” Alex shook his head. “What happened?” 

Nico shook her head. “I don’t even know, honestly. I was thinking about how Amy… she liked paper crafts. And she’s been on my mind anyways, ever since…” Right. That Karolina’s parents had murdered her, and they probably hadn’t gotten around to talking about that yet. Which just made the current situation even more difficult and complicated. “Yeah. But I remembered she had these paper cranes… and so when I said that, these—these paper birds enveloped me and Molly, and I just… I just knew we were safe.” Nico sniffed, and Alex watched as tears dripped down her cheeks. “It was… it was like being hugged by her, again. Like I got to hug her one last time…”

_ Oh.  _

“And then, when it was all over… me and Molly were fine, not even scratched or anything.” Nico’s eyes, glazed and pained as they were, moved over her Staff. “And I guess I know who to thank.”

Alex offered her a wry smile. “She was always good at covering for us, huh?”

He didn’t know how she’d react—if she’d get mad like she did last time they’d talked about Amy. If she’d shut him out again and get angry and scream at him for keeping her death a secret. If she’d say he never really known her at all.

But she didn’t. She gave him a small smile back and just said, “Yeah. She was.”

They held eye contact for a minute, and whatever it was, Alex was grateful for it. It was a start, a peace offering, a hand held out in truce, and he wasn’t one to squander opportunities to repair broken relationships. 

Molly, who had been silent until that point, decided to chime in. “I miss her.”

“We all do, Molls,” Gert said, her jaw set in a line as her eyes combed the ground ahead of them. “But it sounds like she had our backs today.”

“She always has,” Alex said. 

“I wish you all could’ve felt that, though,” Molly almost whispered, her voice far away. “It was amazing.”

Nico nodded, silent. 

Chase broke the quiet. “It sounds like it.”

“Guys,” Gert said abruptly, coming to a slow halt, her voice shaking and barely above a whisper—quiet enough that Alex probably would’ve bowled her over at any other given time, considering how quiet and muted she was, but he was especially tuned to her at the moment given that she might have broken down at any second. “We’re here.” 

The scene before them only made the pit in Alex’s stomach sink lower— _ this  _ was where they were supposed to find Karolina? He’d expected some structure, ruins of a collapsed building, maybe even a wall still standing. But this… this was just rubble. 

He gave Gert a sideways look. “Are you sure?”

Gert nodded. “Positive.”

Alex closed his eyes, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. Could they even find her body in this? Could they find  _ any  _ remnants of her?

Judging from a sideways look at everyone else’s expressions, ranging from horror to devastation, he knew that they had to try. 

“Okay,” he said, voice strangled and cracking. “Okay. Well, I… I say we need to look, right? We can’t just… we can’t just leave her.” He looked at Nico, pointed and more importantly, gently questioning. “Right?”

Nico looked down at the ground, her face screwed up in some desperately composed way. “...Right.”

He took in a deep breath to compose himself. “Gert, why don’t you take Nico and…” He made a fast decision, “Chase, and take them around, see if maybe she got out in time before it collapsed. She  _ can  _ fly, after all.” Alex couldn’t bring himself to speak about his friend, someone who had been alive half an hour ago, in the past tense. “I’ll take Molly and we’ll check out the interior. Maybe she got caught under some rubble and she’s fine.”

The words were hollow and empty, really only meant to console Gert and Nico. The pit of his stomach said that Karolina was dead, that she was gone and he should just be grateful that it was only her out of everyone. They could all be dead, too.

_ Better than this,  _ he thought, grim and pessimistic.  _ Better than leaving one behind.  _

Chase nodded, looking more coherent in Molly’s arms before—which was good, since Gert was still traumatized and Nico looked like her composure might fall apart at any second, and, as selfish as it was, he didn’t want to stick around to deal with the aftermath of that. Nico probably wouldn’t respond well to him comforting her, even as chummy as they’d become lately, and Chase… was better off with Gert anyways. At least she seemed to be more grounded around him.

So Alex gestured for Molly to follow him, and said, “Yell if you guys find anything.”

“Roger,” Chase said, and grabbed Gert by the hand, treading off in the opposite direction. 

Now, Alex just had to do the impossible: find Karolina, in whatever state she might be.  

 

* * *

 

_ She’s dead she’s dead she’s dead she’s dead she’s dead she’s dead— _

_ Nico had never seen a dead body until now. It didn’t look… human. It looked plastic and hollow, like she could touch her face and it would be smooth and oily, like a mannequin. Except it wasn’t, it wasn’t plastic or empty because it was Amy, and Amy was alive last night so how could she be dead? _

_ She remembers the way Amy's face looked—cold, solemn, and alien. Not the Amy she’d been in life, how warm and vibrant she’d been. Deadly smart and always ready with a snip of the tongue for anyone questioning her—but she’d known how to make herself likeable, unlike Nico, who’d just snipped and snipped without any thought to how else she came across. Amy balanced her humor and snark with her sunny personality and won people over that way—Nico just lashed out and stayed close guarded, and her humor was closer to sharp digs to keep people from getting too close.  _

_ And she can’t stop herself from imagining what she’d do if they do find Karolina, cold and alienatingly stiff, like Amy. So… unfamiliar.  _

_ How will she reconcile those warm, soft lips, like driftwood carved by the sea, worn by her own love and the taste of salt and desire and everything she poured into Karolina’s mouth that she couldn’t muster the words to speak aloud, with the death that’s inevitably what she’ll find?  _

**_“I just… I just don’t want to lose you,”_ ** _ Nico had whispered, the words barely escaping her lips that were already gasping Karolina’s name like a prayer, holy, holy, holy. This was the raw, bleeding lover that she’d tried so desperately to bury, clawing its way out of her throat, lured by Karolina’s kisses like the Sirens’ songs—she wonders if even then, she’d known that there was a reason the sailors would stuff their ears and turn away. The sailors that didn’t were taken to their deaths in the dark depths, suffocating with the waves crashing overhead, with nothing but themselves to blame.  _

_ The sailors that took caution and heeded the warning signs were wise. The sailors that let themselves drown were foolhardy. _

**_“You won’t.”_ **

**_“Promise.”_ **

**_“I promise. I promise that you’ll never lose me.”_ **

_ Nico remembers the certainty in her voice, the love overflowing from her that had somehow set her at ease, at least for the moment. She remembers Karolina’s hand ghosting over her bare stomach and closing her eyes, begging the gods to just let her have this, let her have one thing to keep her alright.  _

**_You promised,_ ** _ Nico thinks.  _ **_You promised, you promised, you promised._ **

 

* * *

 

Alex didn’t know which was louder—the blood roaring in his ears, the crunching of the gravel beneath his and Molly’s feet, or the heavy, oppressive silence between them. 

Honestly—if he was being really, truly honest—the logical choice right then was to run. Far, far away, not looking back, just cutting their losses and putting as much distance between them and the city of their parents, the city of their ghosts and demons and pain, so much fucking pain, behind them. Putting everything behind them and fashioning something new out of the ashes.

But logic didn’t take into account that they  _ couldn’t  _ leave Karolina—not because she had a numerical value that Alex could pen down in ink on a graph, or because the benefits of having her outweighed the cons—because she was their  _ friend.  _ Their  _ family.  _ And leaving her behind meant cutting off a piece of his own humanity and leaving it with her, and honestly, honestly,  _ honestly,  _ Karolina deserved so much better than her body being left, broken and gathering dust. 

Molly’s quiet voice, too quiet for her, too muted, broke the thick silence like a knife. 

“What are we gonna do after we find her?”

Alex considered. Ideally, they’d find her alive and safe, but if he was being realistic, the chances of that happening were slim to none. And even if the miraculous did happen, even if she was perfectly unharmed… what then? 

Where could they go?

An idea began brewing in the back of his mind, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Something, something. An idea. Nonetheless, he set it aside and willed himself to answer, despite himself. 

“Get out of here. Leave.”

“I guess the Hostel’s a bust, now, huh?” 

“Yeah. The earthquake would’ve collapsed it, and even if it didn’t, there’s nothing left for us there.”

Molly began humming something under her breath—probably to distract herself. The image was something like a canary, singing and singing because to stop singing is the death bell and you might as well just say your prayers right then.

The image was morbid, even for Alex’s sulking, ‘realist’ self. 

“What are you singing?” He asked. 

“Mitski.” She looked like she was on the verge of tears, and her humming trailed off as they made their way closer to the heart of the wreckage, where Karolina would’ve been had she been alive. 

They stay quiet for a long beat, and then Molly’s soft, clear voice mumbles the words to her song:  _ “Today I will wear my white button-down, I'm tired of wanting more.”  _ Alex could only half hear her, but he was too scared to break the spell. It sounded like a Gert song, the tune that she carried.  _ “I think I'm finally worn, for you have a way of promising things.”  _

He kicked over a concrete block, which sent an arc of pain through his foot, but it was easier, easier than doing nothing and being helpless. 

_ “And I've been a forest fire—I am a forest fire.” _

The remnants of a pillar lay in shambles to Alex’s left. He wondered for a bleak moment if Karolina could have escaped, if she was looking for them the same way they were looking for her, or if she had run and not looked back because them all surviving was just as unlikely as her having survived this, honestly. 

_ “And I am the fire and I am the forest, and I am a witness watching it.”  _

The thought felt ridiculous, though—Karolina would never leave them, not if she’d had to fight tooth and nail to her last breath to get to them. Not if she had to put her own life in between.

_ “I stand in a valley watching it—” _

Alex squinted, looking up ahead and wondering what in hell must have fallen up ahead—there was a small circle of light, and he was just realizing that there’s no way that it could be a streetlamp—

_ “—And you are not there at all.” _

“Oh, my God, Karolina?” 

 

The silence after the question was suffocating. 

Molly, who, moments before, had been quietly singing to distract herself, finding the smallest solace that she could, let out a raw scream that sounded nothing like her, like there was some deeper being drawn out by the pain. 

_ “Karolina!” _

Alex couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know how to react, how to respond, what to do in this situation. He was utterly immobile, frozen by fear. Was she dead? Was she alive? He didn’t know, and as long as he existed in not knowing, he wouldn’t have to confront the reality. 

“Oh, my God,  **_Karolina!_ ** _ Nico! Gert!”  _ Molly sounded like she was reaching hysterics, running forward to reach into the rocks and pull whatever remained of their friend from the rubble—and it was only seeing Molly, terrified and so fucking  _ young,  _ she was a goddamn  _ child  _ and she shouldn’t have to pull her dead friend out of the wreckage that their parents left behind, that snapped Alex out of his paralyzation. 

“Molly, get  _ back,”  _ he said, but his voice came out strangled and afraid. “Please.”

Molly looked at him, her eyes glowing like molten lava and a bewildered, fearful, angry expression written on her face. 

“Alex, she’s  _ in  _ there!”

“I know!” He rubbed his temple. “I know, okay? But I need you to be careful—we can’t lose you, too.”

Molly’s face screwed up—in pain, or resentment, or something else—but she nodded, taking in a deep breath. 

“Okay.” She squatted down, carefully lifting up the concrete pillar with the light peeking out from under it—Alex watched as she strained, it being heavy even for her, apparently. He wished he could help, but he doubted his lack of mutant strength would be of much use to her.

“Can you—can you see?” Molly gasped, struggling to hold up the support—Alex couldn’t really see much of anything except for a blinding pink and yellow light a little bit deeper in, still pinned underneath the rubble. 

“I think she’s still trapped,” he managed. “Karolina?”

There was no stirring, no response to her name. The stone in Alex’s stomach grew heavier. 

“I don’t know if I can lift it any more.” Molly winced as the stone slipped in her hands. “This is, like, half a building of weight.”

“And you’re  _ Molly!” _ Alex said, his desperation creeping in. “Princess Powerful! You got this!”

Molly nodded, gasping for breath.

And that’s when Alex heard a shriek, high and loud and pained, instantly recognizable as Nico’s:  _ “Karolina!” _

_ God,  _ he thought.  _ Not yet. Not yet.  _

But Nico came streaking past him like a small, gothic bullet, shoving him out of the way with surprising force from someone who tipped the scale at ninety pounds soaking wet. 

“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” she said, her voice cracking with every syllable, and Alex would hear the tears through her warbling.

“Nico, hang—hang on,” he tried, but she snapped on him, teeth bared. 

“Don’t you  _ dare,  _ Wilder!”

“I wasn’t—” 

“Karolina! Ohhhhh my  _ Goddd,”  _ she shouted, still focused on getting to her girlfriend like a frenzied dog waiting for the door to open, pacing and shouting like it made anything happen faster. 

Molly grunted in frustration. “A little help, Nico?”

Nico stood to attention, Staff poised—out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Chase and Gert hobble into view behind them. 

_ “Tipi.”  _

Instantly, the block from Molly’s shoulders lifted, along with the others on top of it, and the other large chunks of rubble that were forming the cavity, all swirling together for a moment before slowly constructing a tentlike ceiling above the light.

And there, at the bottom of the basin, lay a pink and yellow bubble just large enough to hold Karolina—if she like, curled up or something. 

The stunned silence that suppressed them lasted for a few beats, just a moment of stunned silence as they took in exactly what had just transpired, and what they still had to do.

And then Nico collapsed. 

 

* * *

 

_ You promised.  _

_ You promised. _

_ You  _ **_promised._ **

 

* * *

 

“What the  _ fuck,”  _ Gert said, from somewhere behind Alex. Honestly, he could barely hear her, since it felt like his head was underwater. 

“Nico!” Molly shouted, instantly rushing to her side and lifting her (from the look of it, it took no more effort than picking an overripe tomato). 

She looked limp, lifeless, and most of all, unnervingly still. Alex didn’t know if he’d ever seen her so pale and quiet. 

“She’s breathing,” Gert said, looking back and forth between Molly and Nico. “Probably just fainted from the stress.”

“Let’s hope so.” Chase sounded grim and bleak—much like how Alex felt. And Alex had to agree.

“We can’t afford a hospital trip,” Alex said, making eye contact with Chase, who nodded.

“Agreed.”

“Who  _ cares!”  _ Molly shrieked. “Karolina’s trapped and Nico’s unconscious and now isn’t the time to be talking about what we can  _ afford!” _

The deadly silence that greeted her words was loud enough for all of their thoughts to speak clearly:  _ what now? _

Alex spoke, trying to sound decisive. He had to. He  _ had  _ to. 

“We need to get Nico somewhere safe. I don’t… I don’t know if that bubble is safe to touch,” he added, hesitant. “Molly?”

Gert objected immediately. “Hey, just because she has superhuman strength—!”

“ _ Means  _ she probably won’t get that hurt if it explodes or something,” he hissed, cutting her off. Gert blew her hair out of her eyes, looking annoyed. 

“It’s okay. Karolina’s probably okay, right?” Molly nodded to herself, passing Nico’s form to Chase, who looked uneasy at the thought of holding his unconscious friend.

“Yeah,” Gert nodded, though she didn’t sound convinced. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Everyone… get back, I guess.” 

Chase lifted Nico over his shoulders in a classic fireman carry, and he, Alex, and Gert stepped back a few paces, enough to be safe if things went awry. 

Gert choked on her breath as Molly descended from view, and Alex found himself taking her hand. 

“She’ll be okay,” Chase whispered. “She’s okay.”

Alex nodded, straining to see what was going on. The eerie quiet, combined with the chill of the night air howling through the ruins of their surroundings, made it feel like they were perched in a graveyard, halfway between the corporeal and whatever lay beyond physical form. It made Alex flex the hand that wasn’t tangled with Gert’s, just to make sure he still could. 

“The… the light,” Gert pointed out, her voice trembling, and—sure enough—the light reflecting under the concrete had faded, replaced with darkness and a sinking feeling of dread in Alex’s stomach. 

Gert squeezed his hand tighter, and despite any effort she made, he heard a stifled sob choke in her throat, and her lips pressed together tightly. He wanted to hold her tighter, tell her it was okay, that Molly would be fine—but honestly, he didn’t know if that was the truth. 

All they could do was wait. 

Gert’s chokes became quieter as a minute passed by, then two, and there was still no sound but the wind whistling and their heartbeats in their throats as they waited, waited for Molly to come back, triumphant, or at least for her to be claimed by the ferryman, but the waiting, the waiting was the worst part. Alex didn’t know whether to expect the worst or hope for the best, but somehow, somehow he was doing both. 

_ This is his fault. _

He shouldn’t have sent her in, no matter the faith he had in her. She was fourteen, for Christ’s sake, and no fourteen year old should have to recover the potentially deadly body of their friend, even a superhumanly strong one. The emotional trauma that he hadn’t even considered in the moment, because Nico was collapsed and Karolina was… unavailable… meant Alex had had to make a choice, quickly. And now, looking at the rubble where Molly had disappeared, he didn’t know if it was the right one. 

_ Please be safe. Please be alive, and please, please, come back.  _

They watched for a moment longer, and Alex heard Gert’s sharp intake of breath as a shape manifested in the dust ahead, a shape that looked—hopefully, hopefully—Molly-shaped. 

“Oh, God,” she said in a strangled whisper, and that’s how Alex knew it was bad—when even Gert was worried less about her damnation and healthily Jewish aversion to Christ and his family, but wholly focused on  _ Molly. _

And Alex could agree with that—right then, nothing mattered more. 

A coughing sounded as Molly emerged just feet from them, a greyed, definitely not glowing, but  _ alive  _ Karolina in her arms—she blinked confusedly, like she didn’t know where she was, or how she’d gotten there. 

“Molly—” Chase started, but Gert rushed forward, faster than Alex had thought humanly possible, cupping Molly’s cheeks with both hands and tears streaming down her cheeks. 

_ Fuck Karolina, I guess,  _ Alex thought briefly, but honestly, he fully understood the moment between Gert and Molly as something beyond the friendship the rest of them shared. While they were all friends, and all of them had fashioned themselves a family of sorts with each other, Gert and Molly were  _ different— _ they were real, flesh and blood siblings, regardless of birth or boundaries or the fact that they came from different mothers. Their family was a deeper kind, the kind that had worked their souls to be intimately connected, in the way that only family is. It made Alex both envious and curious about what he might be like if he’d had a sibling growing up. 

“Are you okay?” Gert asked, still holding Molly’s cheeks with her hands. Molly didn’t respond, just nodded, looking a little breathless. 

“Gert?” Karolina mumbled, and it was only then that everyone standing there even remembered the reason they were all there—because Karolina was dead. And then she wasn’t, and she wasn’t dead in the first place, but then Molly might have been dead, but now she wasn’t, either. And they were all so relieved and grateful that everything in the middle had kind of gotten muddled. “Where’s Nico?”

Gert bit her lip and looked back at Alex. “Um—we—”

“She’s fine.” 

Karolina visibly relaxed, though she still didn’t look like she was comprehending much of anything. “Where?”

Chase waggled his fingers, which were currently hooked behind Nico’s shoulder. “I’ve got her.”

Karolina’s eyes widened at the sight, and she moved like she wanted to stand up—Molly and Gert reacted faster than Alex even realized what was happening.

“Whoa, cowgirl,” Gert said, holding up her hands to stop Karolina from moving. “She’s okay. Probably,” she muttered under her breath, making nervous eye contact with Alex. He just shrugged. “We don’t even know what happened to  _ you,  _ Kar.”

“I—um—I don’t really remember.”

Gert bit her lip—Alex could see it from where he was standing. 

“Do you… remember the garage falling? And Jonah?”

Karolina pauses, then shakes her head slowly. 

“No. I just remember… being hit? It was awful—really heavy, like… like I’d gotten hit with a truck, or something. And I was… I don’t even know, it was just like something had kicked in. I didn’t feel like… like  _ I  _ was doing it. It was like… I was  _ watching  _ me just… survive.”

“Do you think it was some kind of… force field?” Gert asked, her voice echoing and distant. Karolina hesitated.

“I don’t know, but… I think there’s a lot more to my power than I thought.”

Her voice sounded… melancholy. Like she was wondering if she’d made the right choice. To what, Alex didn’t know, but he did know that he was grateful she was still here, and still breathing.

“Well, we can figure that out as we go.” Chase readjusted Nico on his shoulder. “Where to, now?”

Alex shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

 

* * *

 

Karolina lay in the back seat of the Channel 5 News van that Chase had so tactfully hotwired, because he somehow knew how to do that, an unconscious Nico in one arm and a bag of Veggie Straws in the other, munching quietly, careful not to stir her girlfriend in case she still harbored some brain damage or something.

Karolina hoped that wasn’t the case. Not only would that suck a lot, it would be really, really bad to try and deal with, given that they were all now underaged orphans technically supposed to be in some sort of adoptive care system. They probably should have at least not stolen a vehicle and left the state.

But alas, here they were, trundling down I-94 with a Deinonychus and a sense of nihilism hovering over their heads like a rain cloud. 

Gert hummed the lyrics to some song that was playing on the radio, since all of their belongings had been destroyed in the earthquake. It wasn’t like they’d thought to bring anything with them, anyways—none of them expected to make it out alive. 

 

_ Everything that I said I'd do _

_ Like make the world brand new _

 

Nico shifted in her arms, and Karolina pressed a small, slow kiss to her forehead. 

“Hey,” she whispered, watching as Nico’s eyes cracked open—first one, then the other, tentative and grouchy, as she always was in the mornings. Relief filled her chest. 

“Kar,” Nico mumbled, curling tighter into Karolina’s side. “Am I dead?”

“No.” Karolina shook her head, and then paused. “Well, if you are, I am, too, I guess. But I think we’re alive.”

Nico’s nose wrinkled. “The  _ fuck  _ is that smell?”

“Chase, probably.”

Nico snorted. “Then I’m probably alive, since not even Hell would torture me with that.”

Karolina laughed—quiet and small, so as not to disturb Nico too much, but enough. She wrapped her fingers around Nico’s—she always loved doing that. It was a subtle movement, but one that brought her comfort. Nico looked up at her with a look of fondness, maybe, or…

“Hey,” Karolina prompted. “You had something to tell me.”

Nico’s look of confusion was quickly replaced with a flush in her cheeks. “Oh.  _ Oh.  _ Um.”

 

_ And take the time for you _

_ I just got lost and slept _

_ right through the dawn _

 

Karolina remembered, then, the look of desperation in Nico’s eyes, the hunger, the fear, the fire behind her lips that held their lips together like they were a brand on each other—like they’d wear each other forever. She remembered the way she’d kissed Nico, not knowing if she’d ever hear the words Nico wanted to say, but not knowing if she could stand hearing them before her death. 

Now—now she was glad she can hear them without death hanging over her shoulder. 

Nico bit her lip and looked down at her hands, not moving away from Karolina’s side, but not pressing closer, either. Like she didn’t know what else to do.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Karolina started, hoping to ease some of the tension, but Nico shook her head. 

“I just—I don’t think I could have lived with myself, if you… if you had—” She broke off, choking on the words. Karolina rubbed her hand on Nico’s arm.

“I’m here,” she murmured. “I’m okay.”

“But you almost  _ weren’t,  _ and I thought you had  _ died.  _ And all I could think about—all I could think about was how you  _ promised  _ not to leave.” Nico bit her lip again, tears welling up in her eyes, a helpless, breathy laugh forcing its way out of her chest—Karolina could taste the discomfort in it. It was palpable. “It was selfish. And I just—I didn’t know what to do. At all.”

“Hey, no, it’s not—”

“It was, Kar.” Nico shook her head. “I was supposed to be—be held together. For everyone else. And… the only person I can’t be that around is you.”

Karolina’s breath caught in her chest as Nico finally made eye contact with her, eyes red and teary, but something steeled behind them. 

“‘Cause I love you, Kar—God, I love you so much, and I’m so  _ scared  _ of it. I don’t—I don’t know how to deal with how I feel about you, or how you feel about me, or how  _ much  _ I’m feeling—but I wanna figure it out. Together.”

Karolina watched as Nico took a breath, and waited just a beat before leaning in and kissing her as softly, as affirmingly as possible. She let the kiss linger, slow and sweet and everything she ever wanted in a kiss. It was toe-tingling and tooth-aching, bubbly and loving, it was warm and bright and perfect. It was  _ right.  _

She let the kiss stay for just a moment longer before whispering against their joined lips, for only the two of them in the world to hear: “I love you, too.”

Nico smiled at her—a real smile, a pre-Amy smile—and it made Karolina just  _ know,  _ deep in her bones, that somehow, everything was going to be alright. They didn’t know where they were going. They didn’t know what they were doing next. But it was alright. 

 

_ And the world spins madly on. _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO!!!  
> god. its been a RIDE. ive been working on this since august, and honestly, the fact that its done makes me feel very, VERY proud of myself. before i wrote this, the longest fic id ever written was 9k and unfinished. the idea of longfic was DAUNTING, and i wasnt even that good at writing (im still not, but thats something else lol). u can SEE the progress ive made in my style, my ability, and my exploration of plot and character throughout this fic. as much as biry is my crown jewel, this is the crown. a lot of my development as a writer came from this and i really, really couldnt be prouder.  
> but i also dont think im doing that sequel after all. this is pretty good as a standalone.  
> thank you, thank you, THANK you to my beloved betas; mindy, my mother and my support system; alessia, my sister that shoves me down the stairs but she just wants me to be better; emma, who always challenged me in ways i may not have liked, but really, really needed; and jojo, who came onto this project last-minute but she's just phenomenal with everything she's helped me with.  
> i love yall that stuck around to the end, everyone whos just now reading it for the first time, and everyone that loved this so much u read my other fics (btw, i do have other fics ;3). yall r the reason i write <3  
> see you guys later, and thank you so much for all the support and love for this—i couldn't have finished it without yall

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to Mindy, Alessia, and especially Emma for beta-reading!


End file.
